XN000022-1995-03-15 — Page 5

Governor: That gets the prize for the best question so far of 1995, though it runs the danger of abusing metaphor, to quote Lord Palmerstone. First of all, as far as dancing is concerned, I would clearly benefit from very many lessons from the excellent instructors at the St James Settlement Centre. Seriously, we're talking about a dance which has already begun. In 1991, there was an agreement between China and Britain to set up a Court of Final Appeal. That's agreed. We've drafted legislation which we gave to the Chinese side last May, last May, which faithfully implements that agreement. We've made some technical adjustments as a result of the consultations that we had with the legal profession in Hong Kong which were passed to the Chinese side in January. Now, with the best will in the world, nobody can accuse us, having passed over the bill last May, of trying to rush anybody. Indeed I suspect that before too long, the community is going to start to press us to get on with things. But we wish to go forward and I assume that we will go forward in co-operation, because nobody has yet pointed out in any way how our legislation fails to implement the 1991 agreement. Ask Chinese side in what way the bill that they've had since last May fails to implement an agreement which both parties entered into presumably sincerely. We had the word "sincere" used very often by one or two propaganda agencies. Here is a good opportunity for a show of sincerity and I hope it will be taken. Why? Because you know and I know that one of the things that people are most concerned about here in Hong Kong is the rule of law and the continuance of the rule of law after 1997. It's the thing which perhaps more than anything else affects people's daily life, abstraction. It's about whether we can continue with the Chinese side?

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What I will do in consultation with my senior officials and I hope, carrying the Legislative Council as far as possible with me, what I will do is try to set up a Court of Final Appeal and I hope that we have the active co-operation of Chinese officials in doing that. Frankly, the sort of questions that you ask me should be put to Chinese officials. Why should anyone, anyone want to delay the setting up of this Court? One more question.

Question: Is the time constraint factor, is coming to the new Legco elected in September will create uncertainty so better table the bill before the end of this legal session?

Governor: There are additional considerations. Usually, you can allow legislation which is tabled in one session but not completed to spill over into the following legislative session but when a legislature finishes, when it finishes its term, you can't do that. So you either have to legislate before the end of this Legislative Council session or you have to start in the autumn. Everybody knows the real constraints we have in terms of time in setting the Court up. There's no secret about that. We're not making it up. Getting the judges, getting the buildings established, getting the personnel, getting everything organised in order to get this Court set up in time, all that takes time. I wish it didn't.