3 THE LEGAL SYSTEM
THE legal system in Hong Kong is firmly based on the rule of law and the inde- pendence of the judiciary. The Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China provide that the present judicial system will be maintained after 1997, except for those changes consequent upon the establishment of the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) in Hong Kong to replace the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council as Hong Kong's highest appellate court.
On June 9, 1995, after intensive discussions in the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group, the two sides reached agreement on the establishment of the CFA in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997. This agreement ensures that Hong Kong will have a proper court of final appeal that will, subject only to the Basic Law, have the same functions and jurisdiction as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council does now in relation to Hong Kong and that there will be no judicial vacuum in 1997.
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On July 26, 1995, the CFA Bill was passed by the Legislative Council. Since September 1995, the two sides have discussed the practical arrangements for setting up the CFA to ensure that the court will be fully operational on July 1, 1997.
The body of local jurisprudence on the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance continued to grow during the year. The Judiciary has been given additional resources to handle the increasing number of cases involving the Bill of Rights.
The past year saw major developments in the area of human rights protection. Among these were new laws to protect personal data and laws against discrimination on the grounds of sex and disability.
Law in Hong Kong
The Governor, acting with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council, has the power to enact laws for the peace, order and good government of Hong Kong. Most legislation applicable in the territory is enacted in the form of ordinances or as subsidiary legislation made under an ordinance. These ordinances, together with the common law and rules of equity, are the main sources of law in Hong Kong.
The Attorney General's Chambers are responsible for drafting new legislation in Chinese and English, and for translating existing legislation into Chinese. Both the Chinese and English texts are authentic texts of the laws. The first bilingual ordin- ance was enacted on April 13, 1989. Since then, all new principal legislation, and legislation amending bilingual legislation, has been enacted bilingually. In October 1988, the government set up the Bilingual Laws Advisory Committee, to advise on the quality and authentication of Chinese texts of existing ordinances. The committee
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