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desirable that such provision should not duplicate remedies in existing law. It is therefore undesirable to provide that such rights shall be actionable as torts. We propose a modification whereby action to enforce rights under the Bill would be worthwhile
only if remedies under existing law (eg law of defamation, false imprisonment) are inadequate. This provides for full implementation of the Covenant but encourages reliance on existing legislation in the first instance as regards third party rights.
Amendment to Letters Patent
13. At our suggestion, Hong Kong agreed in March that
"entrenchment" of the Bill of Rights should be achieved by amending
the Letters Patent to include a new article similar to Article 39 of
the Basic Law which would provide for constitutional guarantees in Hong Kong for the Bill of Rights up to 1997. This removed the need
for any entrenchment provision in the Bill of Rights itself which
might cause the Chinese to reject the Bill as inconsistent with the
provisions in the Basic Law for legislative voting on Bills and
motions.
14. Hong Kong have now proposed a wording for the amendment to the
Letters Patent. We are unhappy with it mainly because it does not
mirror Article 39 of the Basic Law. Our main concern is with the
Chinese attitude: we know they would rather see the Bill of Rights
scrapped. If the constitutional basis for it before 1997 is as
close as possible to that in the Basic Law, they will find this more
difficult to do. We have therefore suggested wording which follows more closely that of Article 39. This wording deliberately avoids the ambiguity to which Martin Lee refers (paragraph 16 of Hong Kong telno 1583). We think it more prudent to spell out our obligations
and what we interpret Article 39 of the Basic Law to mean rather
than reproduce the ambiguity and rely on the courts for clarity.
Freeze period
15. Hong Kong want to provide in the Bill for a "freeze period" of
two years during which the Bill of Rights would operate as regards
executive action but would not invalidate existing law. During this
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