•
•
had only to ask the other members to designate the new state as one to which their Commonwealth rendition legislation applies. How- ever, Hong Kong is not moving from colonial status to independence. It is being restored to the sovereignty, or resuming its place as part of the People's Republic of China (PRC). 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration provides:
(Article 2 of the "The
United Kingdom declares that it will restore Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China with effect from 1 July 1997." Article 1 of the Declaration provides: "The .
People's Republic of China has decided to resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong with effect from 1 July 1997.") Since Hong Kong will be placed under the sovereignty of the PRC after July 1, 1997, its legis- lative/power is limited to those areas which the PRC delegated to Hong Kong under the Basic Law. Article 13, paragraph 3, of the Basic Law provides: "The Central People's Government authorizes the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to
Region to conduct
conduct relevant external affairs on its own in accordance with this Law." Chapter VII (External Affairs) of the Basic Law contains eight articles (Articles 150 to 157), but none
none of them authorize the HKSAR to exercise extradition power. Moreover, Article 73 of the Basic Law
n the powers and functions of the Legislative Council of of KSAR contains no provision authorizing the Council
the Council to legislate on extradition matters. Therefore, in accordance with the Basic Law, the Hong Kong Legislative Council does not have the power to "localize" the contents of the order-in-Council in extradition affairs in the post-1997 period.
the...
For the same reason, any attempts by the present Hong Kong legislature to "localise" the Hong
the Hong Kong Order into an ordinance would constitute a circumvention of the limited powers delegated by the Basic Law to the HKSAR. As a result, any such ordinance would not survive the coming into effect of the Basic Law on July 1, 1997.
12. For the reasons stated above, it is my opinion that the Hong Kong Government cannot effectively give any specialty assurance as provided in the Hong Kong Order or otherwise which will have any effect after July 1, 1997. It is only the PRC which s the authority to give such an assurance through concluding an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom. However, there is not the slightest indication that the PRC is interested in negotiating such a treaty,
13. The PRC does not have any bilateral extradition treaties with any countries. Neither Chinese official sources nor Chinese writers explain the reason for this.
I suspect
that it
is partially due to the fact that the Chinese criminal justice system is below minimal international standards. examples of this:
HAUKERAT
I set
out
below
some
-6-