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make their fair way in society... it is these things, and the like, which are the precious fruits of Hong Kong's economic growth and success, even though much still remains to be done. But the creation of material wealth and the spread throughout the community of its fruits is not the sole objective, for Man does not live by bread alone. It is as important to ensure the existence and continuance in society of freedom, fairness and justice. The aim, succinctly described at the opening of the 1982-3 Session of the Legislative Council, is that 'services such as housing, social welfare, health, education and recreation, so essential to the well-being of the individual, are provided - but all this in a society in which the rights of the individual are respected, and law and order can prevail.'
The Climate for Success
But what has been the oil that allowed the commercial and financial wheels to turn so smoothly, ever accelerating? What were and are the essential features creating the ambience in which the economy has flourished? It is the stability arising from a Constitution which is known to give no arbitrary or oppressive powers to any individual or body (save emergency powers if the whole internal security of the territory were to be in actual danger); and, perhaps even more important, the trust, based on long historical experience, that no such powers will ever be taken. This, even more than the sophistication of the territory's legal, commercial and bureaucratic structures, has made its virile economy possible. That stability and the international confidence it alone can create and maintain, as well as the existence of those structures, has inspired the business community of the world over the years to migrate to Hong Kong to set up their regional offices and manufacturing operations, and to make here their multi-million dollar investments and deals. It is without doubt the Constitution and the laws of Hong Kong, paying not mere lip-service but giving total adherence to the Rule of Law, which is the bedrock upon which that confidence rests, and which has created the ambience which has permitted prosperity to grow and flower.
The Hong Kong system is secured by a comprehensive code of law based on the English model but adjusted to suit local needs; it is designed to provide the maximum degree of freedom but with a minimum of those very restrictions which make possible and guarantee that freedom. It is buttressed by an independent Judiciary. It is served by a government machinery which, because those responsible for deciding policy are not elected, takes the more care to be sensitive to catch even the whispers of the public, and to seek to be responsive to them. Those unelected members, by virtue of that very fact, have the freedom to represent the interests of the entire community, and not just of some faction or political party in it. Yet, perhaps because the policy-makers do not have to seek re-election, there is a continuity rare in any democracy. Policy decisions are based upon concern for the welfare of the people qualified by a judgment of what is practicable at any time, and never consciously ascribed to any political theory. But, most importantly, those policies are fashioned and honed following a most elaborate and widespread network of consultation - Hong Kong's version of Athenian democracy.
It is only a highly developed system of commercial law, serviced both by lawyers of multi-national expertise, and by a Judiciary whose integrity and competence are recognised world-wide, which can inspire sufficient confidence in the international business community for it to permit any place to become one of its capitals. To be acceptable to strangers and persuade them freely to permit their multi-million dollar deals to be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts, any system of contractual law must be familiar, its rules well known and respected; it must be certain and not arbitrary in operation. Hong Kong's rise as an international commercial and financial capital has been in no small measure due to its
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