4
Macao: Strengthening Human Rights Safeguards
2.
2.1
Background
An organic statute of Portugal enacted in 1976 granted Macao administrative, economic, financial, and legislative autonomy from Portugal. The legal system was excepted from the grant of autonomy. Consequently, the judicial system of Macao is administered directly from Portugal, independent of the territorial government. The President of the Republic of Portugal retained powers to deal with "matters relating to foreign relations, international agreements or conventions, and the powers to represent Macao".1
The applicability of the human rights covenants to Macao
Portugal has ratified the ICCPR and its two Optional Protocols; the ICESCR; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Convention against Torture); the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the European Convention); and 65 of the 171 treaties of the International Labour Organization. The first Optional Protocol to the ICCPR and the European Convention both provide a mechanism for considering individual complaints of human rights violations. By ratifying the second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR Portugal has further pledged to abolish the death penalty in peace time. Under Article 8 of the Portuguese Constitution, these treaties assumed the status of Portuguese domestic law upon ratification and publication.2
The Portuguese Government has taken an ambiguous position before the Human Rights Committee regarding the applicability to Macao of the international treaties it has ratified. It has argued that the Covenants to which Portugal is a party are not in force in Macao because no request had been made to publish them in the official Macao Government Gazette, as required by the organic statute governing Macao. However, a representative of Portugal told the Human Rights Committee that, as in other territories administered by Portugal, the people in Macao "[enjoy] the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms and access to the bodies that [are] responsible to protect such rights
1 See Law No. 1/76 of the Republic of Portugal, enacted on February 10, 1976 (Article 3).
2 Article 8 provides that:
"1. The rules and principles of general or ordinary international law shall be an integral part of Portuguese law,
2. Rules derived from international conventions duly ratified or approved shall, following their official publication, apply in municipal law in so far as they are internationally binding on the Portuguese state."
Al Index: ASA 27/01/91
Amnesty International November 1991