iii)
justification for offering the Commission inviolability of their pouch unless this is a privilege conferred by Cap 190, which I understand is not the case. office will not be a diplomatic mission. Incidentally, the protection accorded to a diplomatic bag is greater than that afforded to a consular bag (cf Article 27, paragraph 3 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1965 with Article 35 paragraph 3 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963).
Your paragraph (c). I have dealt with this point in the previous sub-paragraph.
iv) Your paragraph (d). I do not think that the privileges that the Community enjoys in the UK should necessarily be used as a yard stick for those it will enjoy in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has its own legislation on privileges and immunities.
Moreover, unlike the UK, the Community treaties do not apply to Hong Kong as I pointed out earlier. Presumably, (I am not an expert on privileges and immunities in the UK) the Community enjoys the privileges and immunities in the UK of the kind granted to international organisations under the International Organisations Act. I imagine that the International Organisations Ordinance, Cap. 190 confers similar privileges and immunities to those in that Act.
3. With regard to your paragraph 7, I agree that it is wholly inappropriate for the EC office in Hong Kong to have the same sort of privileges and immunities as those enjoyed by the EC delegation in Peking, not least in my view because Hong Kong is still a British dependent territory. I think we should be fairly robust in this matter. Incidentally the EC is certainly not a supranational organisation as the Commission is arguing.
4. This matter clearly will be of great interest to the Chinese and I have every sympathy with the points raised by Hong Kong as regards likely Chinese concern. Article 157 of the Basic Law does not address the case of an official mission which has been set up by an international organisation in Hong Kong before 1997. Although Article 157, second paragraph provides that official missions established in Hong Kong before 1997 by states which have formal diplomatic relations with the PRC may be maintained, this is a different case. The Joint Declaration also gives no guidance. I think the Commission may well have to obtain Chinese approval for the maintenance of their office in the HKSAR after 1997.
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Shelagh Brooks.
Shelagh Brooks