ל
Gallagher
0491 579638
P.07
MR CHRIS PATTEN INT DAVID FROST
G
LONDON
G
4 APRIL 1993
- 8
MR PATTEN:
I do not think you can have the rule of law without a credible
Legislative Council, I do not say a totally democratic, but a
credible Legislative Council, My bottom line is that we should
have arrangements for electing the 1995 election legislature which are fair, I do not want to have a rigged election, I do not want to have elections which produce a rubber stamp Legislative
Council. I think that if you have a rubber stamp legislature you undermine the rule of law just as if you erode freedom of the
press you undermine the rule of law.
INTERVIEWER:
Why
was that not true for the last 20 years?
MR PATTEN:
It has been true for the last 20 years.
INTERVIEWER:
So we should have done something about it then?
MR PATTEN:
No, but what we do have to assert is that the Joint Declaration which we negotiated means what it says, it is not just a fig leaf behind which we can withdraw from Hong Kong in 1997 with a modicum of honour, it actually means what it says on the paper.