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Honourable Members have also expressed concern about the possible implications arising from Mr WEI Jingsheng's case, and the inferences that might be drawn on the application and interpretation of Basic Law Article 23 concepts after 1997. I should like to stress at the outset that under the "One Country, Two Systems' arrangements provided for in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, the Hong Kong SAR will have laws and a legal system based on the common law that will be different from the rest of China. This is the most important point, which should not be forgotten when we talk about the concepts in Basic Law Article 23. It is, of course, obviously in Hong Kong's interest to be able to have certainty and clarity on how these various concepts will be defined and interpreted as soon as possible. I believe this objective is shared both by many Honourable Members and by the Administration.
We believe that the legislation relating to these various concepts should, first, balance the need to protect freedom of expression by the individual with the need to protect public order and security; secondly that it should be consistent with the Joint Declaration, the Basic Law, the Bill of Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as applied to Hong Kong; and finally, that it should be capable of continuing in force after 1997. We have informed the LegCo Information Panel last July that we had submitted proposals to the Chinese side, through the Joint Liaison Group, on how to localise the Official Secrets Acts and to adapt the Crimes Ordinance in a manner consistent with these requirements. The proposals we have made are entirely consistent with the Joint Declaration, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Bill of Rights and the Basic Law. Some Honourable Members have criticised us for not revealing the content of our proposals, and for the lack of visible progress in the JLG discussion. I wish to remind Honourable Members that it is a fact that our ability to reveal the details of our proposals is constrained by the JLG confidentiality rule. But I shall explain the background to our proposals, and how we intend to take matters forward.
We now have legislation, both in the form of United Kingdom Acts of Parliament extended to Hong Kong and in local laws, that expressly cover the offences of treason and sedition, and which in effect cover the theft of official secrets. These provisions in their present form are obviously not going to be applicable to acts of treason or sedition against the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China. United Kingdom Acts of Parliament will of course lapse in relation to Hong Kong on July 1, 1997 if nothing is done about them. So these laws need to be localised or adapted as appropriate. The concepts of secession and subversion, mentioned in Article 23 of the Basic Law, are not expressly referred to in existing legislation and there is clearly a good deal of public interest both as reflected in the media and in the speeches of our Honourable Members today, in precisely what they mean. The relationship between these concepts and the offences covered in existing legislation is therefore one of the important subjects to be covered in consultations with the Chinese side.
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