File No.
3
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6.
Nor
do I think
we
reservation
in pray made by the UK when ratifying the ICCPR "not to
could
aid
the
or
BOR
apply sub-paragraph (b) of Article 25 in so far as it may require the establishment of an elected Executive Legislative Council in Hong Kong". As you know, we rely on
this reservation,
reflected as
in
S. 13 of the
Ordinance, to support our present dual system of functional and geographical constituencies which does not fully comply with ICCPR Article 25 (BOR Article 21), in particular the
that requirement
elections be by
and universal
equal
suffrage. It would be quite another matter to argue that we are free to ignore the principle of non-discrimination, enshrined in Article 2 of the ICCPR and incorporated in
Article 25, by reference to a reservation' merely designed
to
1
relieve the UK of any obligation to establish an elected LegCo. The fact that the Government is not obliged to provide for an elected LegCo does not mean that if it does decide to introduce elections it can impose discriminatory
restrictions in relation to them.
•
1.
*
categories
of
The same thing may be said of Article VII (2) of the Letters Patent which provides that the law of the
Colony. may
provision for different
Elected Members and separate provision as regards the and disqualifications
make
constituencies,
qualifications
relating to such categories of Elected Members. While this obviously contemplates distinctions between different. categories of elected members in the way of qualifications, I doubt that this would impliedly justify distinctions of the kind mentioned in ICCPR Article 2. (I accept, however, that the existing functional constituency scheme is to some extent based on status distinctions.)
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