XN000022-1995-05-17 — Page 2

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Transcript of the Governor's media session

The following is a transcript of the media session by the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, following a visit to Shek Kip Mei Estate:

Governor: Those of you who come to ExCo meetings as well, I mean not actually to ExCo meetings but to wait to see if anybody will say anything after or before ExCo meetings, you'll remember that in early April, I received a petition from Shek Kip Mei tenants about redevelopment of their estate. I was very keen to come to the estate with Rosanna Wong, the Chairman of the Housing Authority and with the Director to see for myself the conditions of the estate. The Housing Authority have, in the meantime added seven blocks to their redevelopment programme. I am pleased to see both the work that needs to be done in the next five year programme and will be done and to see some of the work that have already been done in improving the quality of the housing on the estate. We're building a large number of flats in Hong Kong. We're spending a lot of money on modernising and redeveloping flats, on removing THAS as rapidly as we can, beginning with the older ones. And that's all important work and we can't ever forget that people's housing conditions are one of their great priorities and remain one of the principal tasks of the administration. And I will continue to make regular series of visits with the chairman, who does such an excellent job, to see conditions for myself.

Question: The PWC has proposed a two-page opinions on the establishment of the Court of Final Appeal, how it should be arranged. This seems to cause further complications on this matter. Do you think this will cause further complications and do you think the consequence will be that the Court of Final Appeal couldn't be set up by 1997?

Governor: I am not sure why they need to do this work. There is after all already an agreement on the Court of Final Appeal reached in the Joint Liaison Group in 1991. It's a good agreement. We've put it into legislation. The Chinese side have had that Bill since May last year and perhaps it would have been interesting to hear from the PWC whether there were any ways at all in which our Bill departs from the agreement in the Joint Liaison Group. I'm sure they must have recognised that the community, not least business community, and international investors want us to get on with the job of establishing a Court of Final Appeal as soon as possible. One thing I don't quite understand is the suggestion that they can simply set up a Court of Final Appeal on July 1, 1997. That betrays a certain lack of understanding of the procedures, of the amount of time it would take, not of course just getting premises and so on, but selecting the judges, agreeing on the procedures of the court and getting those procedures accepted in subsidiary legislation. That's all quite a lengthy process. I don't think anybody in the legal profession in Hong Kong has raised any questions about the time that it will take to get the CFA up and running which is why we want to get on with it as soon as possible.