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11.
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Mr Chan Wai-yip (in Chinese): Mr Governor, previously you said that you are more familiar with the Basic Law than the Bible. I think recently you must have read the LegCo record of proceedings more frequently than the Bible. Just now you read out many speeches from the past and they were made by Legislative Councillors and many words from those speeches were inspiring and Hong Kong people would really like to study those very closely. I would like to know whether you would recommend your department to compile all these very inspiring speeches into publications so that in future when we study democracy and we study human rights we can really learn. from the wisdom of our predecessors? I am talking about my seniors, so I would like to correct my choice of words. It looks like these past few days LegCo has made quite a number of errors with regard to choice of words, so are you going to compile them into books?
Governor: It is certainly an interesting suggestion. I think that I am far too charitable to want to inflict on too wide a community too large a selection of readings from speeches made, even in a chamber as august as this one. I think that on reflection, having read some of these speeches and having read again the Basic Law, I am in future going to spend more time reading the Bible.
Mr Andrew Cheng (in Chinese): Mr Governor, the British side has summoned the Chinese Ambassador in Britain in opposition of the proposal of the Legal Sub-group. But in the Hong Kong Government, apart from the statement - which I think is not strong enough - which you made on Monday, you did not take any concrete measure. And recently, I understand that you are going to second 27 AOs to the Chief Executive designate. In view of the fact that the Chinese Government is quite insistent on restoring these draconian laws, I would like to know how the Hong Kong Government can assure that these officials who are going to be seconded to the Chief Executive designate will not do anything which will breach the Bill of Rights or the human rights situation in Hong Kong? And how can you make sure that they will not be serving as accomplices to the restoration of draconian laws?
Governor: I think the honourable member will recognise the difficulty, the dilemma that we face. We wish, and it is a genuine wish, to be as helpful to Mr Tung as possible. At the same time we don't wish to put civil servants in difficult or awkward or embarrassing situations. I have taken the view, and the Chief Secretary and Financial Secretary I think share that view, that the best way we could try to deal with this dilemma was to second civil servants to Mr Tung's private office in the same way that we would second civil servants to bodies outside government. Mr Tung has said that he recognises the importance of not putting civil servants in awkward situations and I hope that that can be avoided. But ultimately, I guess, Mr Tung is going to have to explain what he asks civil servants to do and the reasons for those actions.