1 -
Firm position on provisional legislature
Following is the speech by the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Nicholas Ng, at the motion debate on provisional legislature in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Mr President,
The corporate position of the British Government and the Hong Kong Government on the continuity of the legislature is well known and consistent. The Prime Minister has restated the position at his recent meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Li Lanqing. The Secretary of State has also done so at the debate in the House of Commons last month. A number of members of this Council have, of course, attended that debate, and so they will be familiar with the comprehensive and unambiguous statement made by the Secretary of State. The pertinent points are worth repeating here.
On the elections held in 1994/1995, the Secretary of State said, and I quote, "those elections attracted turnouts unmatched in the history of Hong Kong. The representative bodies that they have produced have performed their different roles with exemplary diligence and notable moderation. They have shown that no one...... has anything to fear from the measured development of democratic government that we have set in train well within the parameters of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law."
The Secretary of State made clear that we see no justification for the establishment of a provisional legislature. Neither the Joint Declaration nor the Basic Law make any mention of such a body. China will have to explain to Hong Kong and the world why it chose to replace a body for which more than a million Hong Kong people voted with one chosen by a hand-picked electorate of 400.
The Secretary of State also pointed out, and I quote:
"We continue to make it clear to the Chinese side, in public and in private, at every level, that their planned provisional legislature is neither necessary nor desirable. It is not necessary because there is nothing that it can do that should not more properly be done by others before the handover; it is not desirable because Hong Kong already has a duly elected Legislative Council which should be allowed to continue its work, and because a provisional legislature running in parallel with the constitutional Legislative Council risks creating confusion and uncertainty when they are least needed;