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Statement by the Governor
The following is a statement by the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, on the recommendations announced yesterday (Sunday) by the Legal Sub-Group of the Preparatory Committee to repeal or amend 25 Hong Kong ordinances.
"These proposals will cause enormous concern, both in the community and among those around the world who want to see a successful transition in Hong Kong. Some of them appear to be aimed solely at undermining the legal basis for civil liberties in Hong Kong, and they will certainly have that effect.
There is no doubt at all that the Bill of Rights Ordinance (BORO) is entirely consistent with the Joint Declaration (JD) and with the Basic Law (BL). All the Ordinance does is to embody in Hong Kong law the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) as applied to Hong Kong. The continued application of the Covenant is itself promised in the JD, and in Article 39 of the BL.
During the years in which the BORO has been a matter of public discussion, no one has at any time been able to put forward a legally respectable case as to why it, or any part of it, should be inconsistent with the BL. The proposition that it somehow purports to have a status superior to the BL is based on a misunderstanding of the common law system. There is nothing more fundamental to the success of the 'one country, two systems' concept than the preservation intact and without ambiguity of the common law in Hong Kong.
Equally, no serious justification, either in terms of the BL or in terms of stability in Hong Kong, has ever been advanced for reimposing obsolete restrictions of the kind which the Sub-Group appears to envisage under the Societies Ordinance and the Public Order Ordinance. Hong Kong is one of the most moderate and law abiding communities in the world. Is anyone seriously worried that the unlicensed use of loud hailers in demonstrations somehow threatens to plunge Hong Kong into turbulence and anarchy? The Societies Ordinance and Public Order Ordinance in their current forms are consistent both with the BL and with the ICCPR. Any attempt to repeal amendments which were expressly required to bring them into line with the ICCPR would raise serious questions about whether the promises about civil liberties in the BL will be fulfilled. In short it will create a situation of incompatibility with the BL.