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I just say in that spirit of peace and love and reconciliation, which I mentioned earlier, to those who hold that particular view, that they might occasionally ask themselves this, when they are considering the Court of Final Appeal and the agreement that we reached with China: Does the Chief Justice not believe in the rule of law? The Chief Justice supports the agreement and the Bill. What about the Chief Secretary and the Financial Secretary, and the Attorney and the Solicitor General, and the Director of Public Prosecutions? Do they not support the rule of law in Hong Kong? What about eminent Silks on my Executive Council like Denis Chang and Andrew Li? What about the Law Society? What about the Chamber of Commerce? What about the International Chambers of Commerce? What about the Australian, American, Canadian, Japanese and South Korean Governments, all our major trading partners, who support the agreement on the Court of Final Appeal? Do they not believe in the rule of law?
I really think that people should sometimes, perhaps, consider a little more coolly whether they are really always, always right. And maybe they should consider that before they are wall to wall on CNN telling the rest of the world that Hong Kong is finished in 1997. There is the world of difference between pointing to possible dangers in the future, asking for reassurances about them, trying to prevent those dangers galloping round the corner - a world of difference between that, which is what the Administration has been trying to do, and saying that the rule of law after 1997 is a dead duck. Because if people start believing that, then the consequences for Hong Kong's prosperity, the consequences for the jobs of ordinary men and women here in Hong Kong, those consequences are very severe indeed.
So the first thing this Administration is going to try to do, as hard as we try to do anything, as hard as we tried to get into place last year fair provisions for elections in Hong Kong, what this Administration is going to try to do very hard is to secure the passage of that Bill on to the statute book because I think if we were to fail in that, it would be extremely bad for Hong Kong and extremely damaging for the rule of law.
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Secondly, the Honourable gentleman is very patient - I'll be swifter and even more loving secondly, and I believe that this is important too, we must make sure that the administration of justice is in as good order as possible. That's why we want to see more courts operating, that's why we want to see more judges on the bench, that's why we want to see more resources put into adequate provision of Chinese language facilities in our courts, that's why we want to see us dealing with the backlog of cases more rapidly in the future.
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