1992
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS
COMMISSION INTERNATIONALE DE JURISTES ● COMISIÓN INTERNACIONAL DE JURISTAS
40 PRESS RELEASE • COMMUNIQUÉ DE PRESSE • COMUNICADO DE PRENSA
i
For Release 28 April 1992
British Government Ignored Hong Kong's Rights, Jurists Say
The British government showed a disturbing lack of concern for the human rights of Hong Kong citizens when it negotiated the agreement with China, concludes a report issued today by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).
The report, "Countdown to 1997", says the United Kingdom was not entitled to hand over to China about 3 million British citizens without giving them the right
of self-determination. Under international law, the inhabitants should have been allowed a referendum to approve or reject the Joint Declaration before it was signed by the United Kingdom and China in December 1984. In principle, the report says, the British government has an obligation to provide rights of abode in the United Kingdom or in acceptable third countries to British dependent territory citizens who wish to leave Hong Kong.
Moreover, the jurists fault the British government for not objecting to the unsatisfactory provisions of the Basic Law, which was promulgated by China in 1990 and will be the constitution of Hong Kong after 1997.
With the Basic Law, China in many respects is evading obligations it accepted when it signed the Joint Declaration, the report says. One major concern is the future of the judiciary.
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For example, the Chinese National People's Congress not the courts of Hong Kong have been given the power to interpret the Basic Law and to decide whether existing laws of Hong Kong contravene it. If an independent judiciary is not maintained, the protection of human rights is in jeopardy, the report
cautions.
The Joint Declaration, ratified by the United Kingdom and China in May 1985, has the status of a treaty between the two countries. It stipulates that the United Kingdom will restore to China the New Territories, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon on 1 July 1997, the date when the lease on the New Territories expires.
"The Joint Declaration was signed before the brutal suppression of the pro- democracy movement in June 1989," said ICJ Secretary-General Adama Dieng. "The big question is: Will the Chinese government allow the people of Hong Kong to exercise the rights and freedoms which it has denied so far to its own citizens?
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