(b) The Accountability of the Executive
4.23.
"7
4.24.
The Joint Declaration provides that the executive shall be accountable to the legislature. Article 64 of the Basic Law gives accountability four component parts. It provides that:-
"The Government of the HKSAR must abide by the law and be
accountable to the Legislative Council of the Region: it shall implement laws passed by the Council and already in force. It shall present regular policy addresses to the Council. It shall answer the questions raised by members of the Council. It shall obtain approval from the Council for taxation and public expenditure,
Ir
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This is a restricted conception of accountability. It cannot imply,
of course,
that
"the Legislative Council as a deliberative assembly [loses its]
power to move, debate and adopt motions expressive of its collective view as to whether specific policies and measures, specific public officials and the Government as a whole are worthy of its support"
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for the power to "debate any issue concerning public interests" is expressly preserved in article 73 " ?~ So what does it mean? Can it be that such motions are to be ignored?
The question arises as to what "accountability" might have been expected to mean given its status in the Joint Declaration. One, to me, rather surprising answer to this question is to be found in the Spring 1988 edition of the Journal of Chinese Law. It was said there that:
"According to the opinions of a few members of the [PRC Basic
Law] Drafting Committee who personally attended the negotiations between China and Great Britain [article 64's] explanation of the substance of 'accountable' [was] consistent with their assessment of the actual situation of those negotiations and with the understanding of the substance of the word 'accountable' at that time."
"
I am unsure whether I quite understand the point that the PRC author is seeking to make, for the term accountable" seems to me to be used either with differing meanings in the Joint Declaration, or with a single meaning which involves a much less restrictive meaning than the PRC author seeks to advance. Let me be specific:- Part I provides
that: -
"The legislature of the Hong Kong SAR shall be constituted by elections. The executive authorities shall abide by the law and shall be accountable to the legislature.'
པ ཨབྷཡ-མས་ན---—-མ