TILENHAL
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Amendments to the Letters Patent
67.
The purpose of seeking an amendment to the Letters Patent is to entrench in domestic law the ICCPR as applied to Hong Kong. The effect of the amendment sought will be a constitutional requirement that no law which restricts the rights and freedoms of persons in Hong Kong can be validly enacted by the Governor and Legislative Council if the law is inconsistent with the provisions of the ICCPR as applied to Hong Kong.
68.
The text of the Letters Patent has not been finally agreed with the FCO and will depend upon the final form of the BOR because decisions about
about deferring the application of certain articles or deferring the obligations of private citizens under the BOR may affect the text of the amendment. It will therefore probably not be possible to announce the text of the amendment when the Bill is published.
Practice of Subordinating all Future Legislation to BOR
69.
This Council decided on 9 January 1990 that there should be a practice that all future ordinances should contain a clause which expressly made them subordinate to the BOR. This was a form of political entrenchment of the BOR which would endure for as long as the legislature was prepared to enact ordinances which contained this clause. It would supplement the constitutional safeguard provided by the amended Letters Patent.
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