- 12.
Governor: There are many alternative meanings of the word "bird" in the English language, one of which I will not refer to but one can also accuse somebody of "giving one the bird" which doesn't mean handing over a parrot, whether healthy or unhealthy. It isn't as laudatory a salutation as one would like. I'd be interested to compare ornithological metaphors with the Honourable Member. My ornithological metaphor was drawn from one of the most popular western, and indeed eastern cultures, and that is football. As for definitions of "sick parrots", I am reminded of someone who once, when asked to define or describe an elephant said that they were very difficult to describe but you knew them when you saw them. And I think the same is true of sick parrots.
Mr Martin Lee: Governor, are you aware that in early 1988, the then Chairman of the Bar, had a meeting with the then Attorney General, Mr Michael Thomas, followed by subsequent correspondence, in which the then Attorney General confirmed that the Government's understanding of the Basic Law and the Joint Declaration provision as to the Court of Final Appeal in fact accords that with the Bar namely that the Court of Final Appeal shall have complete and unfettered discretion in deciding on how many judges they should invite to sit in a particular case, not just one, but two or more as required, and when I put this at a recent Bar seminar, the then Attorney General Michael Thomas, confirmed at the seminar that that was the Government's view and that he also confirmed that in his view that the present Bill which is based on the 1991 secret deal, does not accord with the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law. Would you please care to explain?
Governor: Well, I must allow the distinguished fellow silk to whom the Honourable Member refers to reply for himself. But I'm not sure that the former attorney would entirely share the Honourable Member's description of that correspondence or of that recent exchange. I think, if I may say so, that there is the world of difference and I don't accept the Honourable Member's description of the position, but there is the world of difference between the objectives that you set yourself when you go in for a negotiation and what you conclude at the end of the negotiation is an acceptable deal, albeit conceivably not as splendid a deal as you would have liked at the outset. Conceivably it's the case for example that Chinese officials going into those negotiations would have liked a Court of Final Appeal sitting as the judicial committee of the Privy Council does in the capital of the sovereign. That is doubtless the sort of issue which they argued about or may have argued about during those discussions, during those negotiations. I don't know. What I do know is that the negotiations concluded with an agreement which in my judgement, in the judgement of the Hong Kong Government, in the judgement of the British Government, is wholly in line with the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law. What is more, it's an agreement which provides in our view the only basis for the establishment of a Court of Final Appeal before 30th June, 1997. I repeat what I said earlier, I think the alternative is that we either have such a Court before '97 or we don't have such a Court with all the implications. I don't think the Honourable Member is going to get a Court in which he has greater confidence if it's not set up until after 30th June, 1997.