7. China and Hongkong have wholly differing legal and administrative systems. In China, I believe that no effective legal remedies yet exist against the state for actions in which it may engage. The governance of Hongkong, however, has proceeded on the British assumption that the manner of the combination of institutions and legal safeguards with certain administrative attitudes and constitutional conventions provides the sine qua non for effective and proper administration. From here flow the ideas which underlie the prevailing notions of administrative practice, the concepts relevant to the relationship between management and development, and the practice and training of personnel who operate within the system of government. China has no practical experience of these at all.
8. As well as considering legal and administrative issues relevant to each separate place, I hope to do the following at least on my visit to Hongkong and China:
9.
[a] Identify areas on which touchpoints will exist lawfully between the two systems, and predict those which will occur unlawfully.
[b] Identify training courses already available to Chinese and Hongkong administrators in the current concepts and issues of administration and management in government.
[c] Identify the thinking in each place on the proper relationship between central, regional, and local government, and between them and multi-national companies, and public and private businesses.
[d] Identify the thinking at a senior level about the machinery for the implementation and monitoring of special problems of public administration, including co- ordination between departments, and the introduction and implementation of new policies. In relation to the latter, relations in Hongkong government and the media and between government and the private sector do seem to be very important indeed.
so too
Although the answers to some of the above will follow from the terms of the Basic Law and the Joint Declaration, I remember well the fear in Hongkong that within the PRC as a whole "law has been and continues to be party policy made perfect", and "the moment the political norms change, the legal system is forced to adjust". Thus, it is feared that post-1997 this attitude will act as a corrosive agent on provisions underpinning the autonomy of the HKSAR. Standing alongside this fear is the rationale for incorporating the human rights covenants into Hongkong law
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