different agenda and mission, is not
is not an idea that is accepted
On the contrary, it is
or
even respected in China.
frequently denounced
as a Western bourgeois idea. The
proposed Final
Final Court of Appeal for Hong Kong, being
established pursuant to the Basic Law under the Constitution
of the
as
the PRC, must ultimately be subject to the Standing
Committee of the NPC upon any controversy relevant to the
meaning of the Basic Law or the impact on Hong Kong laws of
the laws and Constitution of the PRC. For this reason the
Final Court of Appeal should more properly be described
the "Almost Final" Court of Appeal for Hong Kong. And the
difficulty specially presented is that it is a court subject
not to another court sharing a similar ethos but to a
political committee of Party members more likely to be
responsive to those in power in Peking than to enduring
notions of fundamental human rights, the independence of the
judiciary or the rule of law.
Seventhly, the delay in establishing even such a Final
Court of Appeal of
of incontestably respected and indigenous
lawyers must be a source for growing concern. The
Sino-British Joint Liaison Group failed in April 1991 to
agree on a date for the setting up of the Final Court of
Appeal which it is intended should take over from the Privy
Council after 1997. A Joint Liaison Group subcommittee has
been discussing the question of such a Final Court for more
than two years. Discussions in the full group began in
August 1990. The representatives of the United Kingdom are
reportedly keen to establish the Final Court of Appeal by
1992, So that it will be fully operational in advance of
It has been reported that the representatives of the
1997.
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