no provision is made which would provide the SAR courts with an official agent of the CGP itself against whom legal process could be instituted. There is no prospect of recourse of a legal nature either in Hong Kong or Beijing against the CPG [64]
Provision is made in the Basic Law for the personnel of departments of the CPG, or of other local governments which, with the approval of the government of the SAR, set up offices in the SAR to abide by the laws of Hong Kong. So too must members of the garrison[65]. It may be unduly critical to question whether "abide by the laws" is intended to have the same meaning as "be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts", though the use of the former phrase in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations inevitably raises it, but, in any event, it is an unanswered question whether such responsibility to the courts of individual members of departments or offices of the central or a local government or the garrison will attract the liability or answerability of the CPG or the local government itself so as to permit of effective redress before the SAR courts against illegal or oppressive acts.
39.
Within their jurisdiction, the SAR courts are intended to maintain the system previously practised (which here and elsewhere begs the question whether the courts will interpret "previously" as meaning before 1st July 1997 or, as the Chinese have in the past maintained, before 1984, the date of the signature of the Joint Declaration), except for the change consequent upon the establishment of a Court of Final Appeal in place of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The power of final adjudication will be vested in the new court. It is expressly provided that the courts are to exercise their powers independently and free from any
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