93
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
10 November 1993
香港立法局
一九九三年十一月十日
93
.....
Mr President, if you will remember, a vice-foreign minister told the World Conference on Human Rights in June that "each and every Chinese citizen enjoys genuine democracy and freedom, (and) civil and political rights." If the Chinese Government believes what every Chinese citizen enjoys amounts to "genuine democracy and freedom" then Hong Kong has every reason to fear for the future of its own rights and freedoms after 1997.
Hong Kong people are extremely concerned about the implication of Mr HAN's case because, on 1 July 1997, we will become a class of Chinese nationals those of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Annex III of the Basic Law states that China's Nationality Law "shall be applied" to the SAR. That could well mean that the freedom of movement of SAR citizens will be determined by China, in spite of Article 31 of the Basic Law which provides for the "freedom to travel and to enter or leave" the SAR. It is intolerable that citizens could be treated in the way Mr HAN was.
With recent threats from Chinese officials that "subversives" whoever they are will not be allowed to serve the future SAR Government, it is not unreasonable for many of us to wonder what may be in store for us. Will it be ejection or arrest? Or will repentence buy Chinese magnanimity? Mr President, those threats are just as intolerable, and Chinese officials cannot expect Members of this Council to remain polite about them.
Hong Kong is about to pass from the values of one system which respects the rights of the individual and the rule of law to the dictatorial values of another. The gulf between what passes for law in China, and the legal system now operating in Hong Kong, is correspondingly vast. So much so that China may have real difficulty accommodating a true rule of law in Hong Kong.
China's concept of "socialist legality" effectively makes the Communist Party the sole interpreter of the people's interest. The Party stands above the Government. The Party can interpret, misinterpret or simply ignore the law. The law is regarded and used as an instrument of the state.