reduced from 16 to 10 and appointed membership from 30 to 22;
and that 24 members should be elected indirectly 12 by an
Electoral College and 12 by functional constituencies. The
White Paper also noted that the consultation exercise had
revealed "strong public support for the idea of direct
elections but little support for such elections in the
immediate future". The question of whether direct elections
should be introduced at the Legislative Council elections due
in 1988 was explicitly left open for consideration in a further review in 1987.
6.
After 1984, there was increasing public debate on the
question of elections in Hong Kong. The 1985 Legislative
Council was more active than its predecessors, and debated this
and other important issues openly, rather than in closed
session.
7.
During this period China's Basic Law for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), which will enter into force on the transfer of sovereignty on 1 July 1997, was being developed by the Basic Law Drafting Committee, appointed by the Chinese National People's Congress in 1985. A Basic Law
Consultative Committee was formed in Hong Kong to reflect the
views of Hong Kong people to the Drafting Committee. A first
draft of the Basic Law came out in 1988, and the Basic Law was
finally promulgated in April 1990. It spells out more fully
the constitutional arrangements for post-1997 Hong Kong as promised in the Joint Declaration. People's Congress", annexed to the Basic Law, set out in some
detail the method for forming the first legislature of the Hong
Kong SAR in July 1997, including its composition. The Decision
also set out the basis on which members of the Legislative
Council elected in 1995 could serve through 1997 to 1999 (the
so-called through train concept). The text of this decision is
at Annex 2. The provisions of the Basic Law and the associated
A "Decision of the National
statement26.8/BRIEFS/NJH
8