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concurrently with the powers delegated to the Hong Kong Courts under BL 158. We have generally made the pessimistic assumption that, even with respect to matters within HK's autonomy, the NPC will consider there to be concurrent powers of interpretation after 30 June 1997.)
6. I can see that there might be a legal basis for the view that, after the BL is in force, it can only be amended in accordance with the BL 159 procedures. The argument would be that BL 159 sets out the procedure by which the NPC must exercise its constitutional power to enact amendments. Another way of putting it might be that since the power in Article 62 of the Constitution is general in nature, it has to be interpreted in the light of the more specific provisions of BL 159.
7. However, before the BL is in force, I do not see how such an argument could logically be made. It would be odd for Constitutional powers to be limited or amplified by a legislative provision which has no legal force.
8. As I see it, the Chinese have no obvious legal basis for their claims that the BL cannot be amended before 1997. However, Chinese constitutional law is whatever the NPC (or its Standing Committee) says it is. In view of this, our legal analysis, or anyone else's, however expert, is rather beside the point. The reasons for Chinese claims that the BL cannot be amended before 1997 are almost certainly based on policy not law; the policy reflecting their desire to demonstrate stability in their approach to the future arrangements for Hong Kong.
9.
Since Chinese constitutional law is so undeveloped, and the BL has a number of novel features, relevant precedents are difficult to find, I do not know of any other PRC statute which sets out special procedures for its own amendment, nor do I know of any other statute which has been formally amended before its entry into force (but then since the interval between enactment and entry into force is not normally more than a few months or a year the need would not often arise). It has been known, I believe, for means other than a formal amendment to be used to effect an early change to the meaning of a law; for example, for a "decision on implementation" or an "interpretation" to be issued by the enacting body at the same time as the law itself enters into force. These methods sometimes have much the same effect as a textual amendment, but without doing so explicitly. It may be that a legislative organ would consider that to issue a formal amendment soon after enactment would entail too much loss of "face".
10. You suggested I might discuss this subject with academic contacts at SOAS; I have done so with my successor there Dr Y Cheng, who takes much the same view as I have expressed above. I shall also write to Michael Palmer, Director of the
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