XN000022-1995-07-28 — Page 6

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Question: Emily Lau in Legco carly today said that in last year's Policy Address, you promised that there would be changes to laws related to press freedom. So far, only a limited has been done. Do you think it is fair to say that not much will be improved before 1997?

Governor: No, I don't. What's actually happened is that 80 percent of the bills that we needed to look at have been dealt with in all we've looked at 53 different parts of 27 ordinances. In 11 cases, we've concluded that because issues like privacy were involved, or the right to a fair trial, it wouldn't be right to change the legislation. In one case, the Court of Appeal have found that the powers in the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance related to the Commission Against Corruption wouldn't in contradiction with the Bill of Rights. Now that may be appealed to the Privy Council, but at the moment I think our position is firm and clear. We believe that measure was important in the fight against corruption. That leaves, I think, about 31 individual measures that we've actually taken to deal with problems that could arise in regard to freedom of the press like removing our out-dated Emergency Regulations while retaining the legislation which would allow a government working with the Legislative Council in the unlikely eventuality of an emergency to take the necessary steps. There are a few measures still left. There are two prison rules that we need to amend in the next session. There are a couple of matters under the Telecommunications Ordinance where we are waiting for the reports of the Law Reform Commission, and there are three sensitive issues where we would like the law to straddle 1997. There is sedition and treason and official secret, we haven't actually used the official secret legislation against anyone but we are keen to see that legislation localised. We've put proposals on each of those matters to Chinese side and in every case, the proposals that we've put forward are entirely in line with the Bill of Rights and I hope that in the discussions that we have with Chinese officials will be successful because it would obviously be a matter of some comfort to people in Hong Kong if we could ensure that the legislation on those matters went through 1997 smoothly. So, the simple answer to your question is 80 percent done. Some tricky issues still to handle, but I hope we'll be able to manage them as successfully as we've managed the 80 percent.

Question: With reference to the recent remark by Mr Qian Qichen on the chance of your meeting with Mr Lu Ping. Do you think you can meet Mr Lu Ping after Mr Qian's visit to London?