Ms Shelagh Brooks Legal Advisers K211
Hkc 370/7
нес
Reference.
HONG KONG: LOCALISATION OF LAWS: CAN LAPSE ITEMS
-16
17
pa Localisation
1.
2.
I refer to your minute of 12 November.
I can confirm that this list is indeed the first list of "can lapse" items to be drawn up for consultation with the Chinese. On 28 April 1987 we handed over to the Chinese side at a Localisation of Laws expert meeting a full list of enactments which the UK had applied to Hong Kong. To quote the reporting telegram: we said that "we wished to point out that some of these enactments clearly would not require to be localised e.g. the Demise of the Crown Act 1901, the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 and the Japanese Treaty of Peace Act 1951. None of these three laws would be localised." We did not go into more detail it seems. At JLG VIII later that year the Chinese agreed to the principles for consultation on localisation of laws which we had suggested.
3.
Thank you for your detailed comments on this exercise and on the possible ways of making sure that these laws do lapse in 1997. I attach a draft telegram to Hong Kong asking for their views on the subject and, in the shorter term, giving them clearance to hand the speaking note and the list to the Chinese side. Perhaps you could check that this is on the right lines. You might like to have paras 1 and 3 sent as a first telegram, so that you can expand para 2 into a fuller telegram or a letter to David Edwards.
I will search through our files to look for any correspondence on this subject.
4.
CODE 18-77
Janathan Marshall
J N Marshall
Hong Kong Department WH305 270-3287
18 November 1992