of the "continuation of laws" by the UK legislation has been
possible because the UK also establishes the constitutional order
for the newly independent country as an essential part of the
process of the transfer of sovereignty. It would not have been
possible for Hong Kong where sovereignty passes to the PRC (whose
Constitution would henceforth become the grundnorm for Hong Kong)
which will establish new constitutional arrangements for Hong
Kong; nor has it been attempted. Thus even under British law,
the existing laws of Hong Kong would come to an end on 1 July
1997.
13. Whether any existing Hong Kong laws will continue in force
after 1997 could only be decided by the PRC, in the exercise of
its discretion. The PRC promulgated the Basic Law which provides
inter alia for the continuation of existing laws. The principal
article is 8, which is as follows, "The laws previously in force
in Hong Kong, that is, the common law, rules of equity, ordi-
nances, subordinate legislation and customary law shall be main-
tained, except for any that contravene this Law, and subject to
any amendment by the legislature of the Hong Kong Special Admin-
istrative Region". It is thus obvious that not all the existing
laws will be maintained in force, as the article excludes direct-
ly effective UK legislation (e.g, order in Council and Acts of
the UK Parliament applied to Hong Kong), perhaps because these
smack of colonialism and might be seen to derogate from the
sovereignty of the PRC. The subsidiary legislation referred to
in article 8 of the Basic Law is the subsidiary legislation of
8