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60.
However if it were subsequently established upon authority (i.e. by the UN Committee on Human rights under the ICCPR or by the courts under the BOR) that the present distinctions contravened the ICCPR or the BOR, it would be necessary to reconcile JD 156 (which provides
provides that the ICCPR as applied to Hong Kong shall remain in force) with JD 204 and 205 (which purport to accord rent concession to successors in the male line). Such reconciliation could be achieved on the basis that neither JD 204 nor 205 should be interpreted or applied in such a way as to require the ICCPR (and thus JD 156) to be breached. In that case one solution would be to construe JD 204 as not requiring women to be charged a greater rent than would, by virtue of JD 205, be payable by men in a similar situation. In other words the special benefits conferred by JD 205, expressly in the case of men and women descended through the male line, should also be conferred on men and women descended through the female line.
61.
As regards the relationship between the Bill of Rights and the Basic Law it is relevant that Article 40 of the Basic Law refers to the protection of the "lawful" traditional rights and. interests of the indigenous inhabitants of the New Territories; and Article 8 preserves customary law "except for any that contravene this Law". Therefore if any of such rights, interests or customary law contravened the provisions of the ICCPR they would be excluded from the purview of Article 40 and Article 8 of the Basic Law by virtue of Article 39 (which provides that the ICCPR provisions as applied to HK shall be implemented through the laws of the SAR).
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