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Governor's statement
The following is a statement by the Governor. the Rt Hon Christopher Patten:
During the last two days, the Preparatory Committee, sitting behind closed doors in Peking, has been taking crucial decisions about Hong Kong's future. Decisions which go to the heart of what "one country two systems" will really mean. Will Hong Kong people really be able to decide for themselves, as promised, how to run their domestic affairs, or will the decisions which matter be dictated by others? Will tomorrow's Hong Kong, as promised, be exactly as free as today's, or will it be less free? Will the rule of law, on which all freedoms ultimately depend, remain supreme?
Hong Kong people have a right to full and authoritative answers to their questions. Those are still not forthcoming. But today's reports from Peking are very disturbing.
We are told that key provisions of the Bill of Rights Ordinance, the Societies (Amendment) Ordinance and the Public Order (Amendment) Ordinance are indeed to be scrapped. What we are still not told is why it is necessary to restrict Hong Kong's civil liberties; what provisions of the Basic Law are being contravened; how it can possibly be consistent with the Basic Law to replace, as still seems to be intended, legal provisions which are compatible with the International Covenant as guaranteed in the Basic Law itself with provisions which are not compatible with the Covenant. Once again we have the impression of legal arguments hastily thrown together, policies made up as we go along.
The community is not naiv. Many will now be concluding that the freedoms protected by the provisions in question are deemed to be "against the Basic Law" because it has been decided for reasons which have nothing to do with the Basic Law that those freedoms should be reduced. If that is not the case, Hong Kong deserves a proper explanation now.
It is also reported that steps are now being taken to make the activities of the so-called Provisional Legislature more "legitimate". This looks like a belated recognition that this body has a legitimacy problem. But no amount of retrospective tinkering can change the reality that this is a questionable body established for questionable motives to do questionable work. Moreover, there is nothing that can possibly be done to make the activities of the PL before 1 July legitimate in constitutional terms. And any attempt to do so would be in defiance of the undertaking given last year by Vice Premier Qian Qichen.
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