!
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The Other Hong Kong Report 1993
even after 2007, have a democratically elected legislature or Chief Executive. Its courts will not have the power of final adjudication on the constitutional validity of its own laws or on the interpretation of the Basic Law. Its executive will not have the sole power to decide when a state of emergency exists and will be required to prohibit whatever the Standing Committee considers to be "subversion". Its legis- lature will be unable to legislate without the consent of a Chief Executive who is not elected by a democratic process.
All this casts grave doubts on the commitment of the Government of the PRC to fulfil its obligation to allow gennine autonomy to Hong Kong after 1997.
Meanwhile, the attitude of the British Government to the promulgation of the Basic Law has, at least in public, been one of supine acquiescence. This is typified by the statement of a spokesman for the United Kingdom (Mr. Beamish) to the UN. Human Rights Commission on 4 April 1991 that "the Government of the United Kingdom had satisfied itself that the Basic Law was on the whole consistent with the basic principles enshrined in the Joint Declaration and corresponded with its intention to resume the continued application of the Covenant beyond 1997”. The accuracy of that view can be judged in the light of our own analysis of the Basic Law.
- "Countdown to 1997", Report of a Mission to Hong Kong on behalf of
the International Commission of Jurists (1992), pp. 114 and 115.
Parliament's Sovereignty Flouted?
The period of implementation reviewed thus far in this chapter runs from the first meeting of the JLG, `in London, in July 1985 and ends with the twenty-third meeting held in Beijing in June 1992, exactly seven years later. If the measure of the performance is to be the degree of success in achieving the long-term objectives of the Joint Declaration, as defined by British Ministers from time to time, such as to guarantee "to provide a secure future for all Hong Kong residents—one in which they can feel confident and can continue to prosper" (Lord Glenarthur, House of Lords, 20 January 1986) or “to build up a firmly-based, democratic administration in Hong Kong in the years between now and 1997" (Richard Luce, House of Commons, 5 December 1984) it is clear that implementation of the Joint Declaration has failed abysmally and that those responsible may have usurped the sovereignty of Parliament by secretly collaborating with China in denying Hong Kong the means to attain a high degree of autonomy in the conduct of its internal affairs. This is not a matter that can be shrugged off simply because it is now all behind us and China is on the verge of taking over. In Britain, as this book goes to press, a public inquiry by Lord Chief Justice Scott into British arms sales to Iran is revealing disturbing evidence
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