CONFIDENTIAL
Remicho
Cantidadial Seant
Toli feart
opposed all measures taken in response to Tiananmen, and
reserved the right to examine at an appropriate time after
1997 all laws currently in force, including the BOR, in accordance with the provisions of the Basic Law.
4. Specific Chinese concerns were political rather than
legal:
(i) The BOR's status vis-a-vis the Basic Law. We
repeatedly assured the Chinese that the BOR would not have a
superior status over the Basic Law. On the contrary, the
Basic Law would be superior to the BOR;
(ii) The BOR's status vis-a-vis other laws in Hong Kong. The Chinese worried that the BOR was being given a special
or superior status over Hong Kong laws. We explained
repeatedly that this was not the case. Chinese concerns
centred on clause 4 of the Bill, which we amended to read
"all legislation after the commencement date shall, to the
extent that it admits of such a construction, be construed so as to be consistent with this ordinance." The purpose of this clause was to encourage the courts to find ways of
interpreting legislation which would be consistent with the
International Convention on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), ie to avoid legislation being declared invalid;
(iii) That the BOR would entail wholesale changes in
Hong Kong's existing laws to ensure consistency. This was unfounded: only limited changes are required.
5.
The BOR as enacted included a provision for a "freeze
period", designed to avoid the destabilising effects of a
possible legislative vacuum if any existing laws were found
to be invalid. During this period, six ordinances which
contained provisions possibly inconsistent with the Bill of
FUTABG/2
CONFIDENTIAL