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Governor: Well, I think there is a consensus in the community that we should set up a court in line with the agreements, the Joint Declaration, in line with the Basic Law, in line with the 1991 agreement, that we should set up a court and have a court running as soon as possible, and certainly before 1997, so that there can be available to the SAR Government and the community after 1997 a court with experience of working, with the early experience of establishing a body of jurisprudence. I think there is general agreement about that. What we want to do is to proceed at a reasonable pace. We've got to give the Legislative Council the time to give the legislation proper care and proper debate. And, of course, we want to mobilise as much consent in the profession and as much agreement in the community as possible. The first thing we're looking for, of course, is a reasonably early response from the Chinese side. They've had a copy of our bill since last May. If the Executive Council agree on Tuesday to make certain amendments to the proposed bill, we'll be sending those to Chinese officials as rapidly as possible. I understand that they want to scrutinise the bill carefully, but I hope they'll be able to give us a reply very soon.
Question: Also about the VMs, after the meeting in Hanoi, they decided that measures will be introduced so that the migrants will get more accurate data on themselves. What are those measures?
Governor: Well, they're principally ensuring that the biodata which is given by VMs is accurate. It's a way of ensuring that accurate information and not just what the VMs are saying, which may or may not be accurate, is in the hands of the Vietnamese authorities because there is some experience of VMs making up biodata in order to try to ensure that the Vietnamese authorities decline to have them back. OK. Thank you very much indeed.
End/Friday, January 20, 1995
Investment in social structure
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The Chief Secretary, Mrs Anson Chan, said today (Friday) that more investments had been put in Hong Kong's social structure to improve the quality of life, which would in a way enhance the territory's economic success.
Speaking at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce luncheon, the Chief Secretary added that the Government was committed to tailoring increases in public expenditure to the increase in GDP growth so that taxes could be kept low to attract businessmen.