XN000022-1995-11-16 — Page 16

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Governor: I'm sure that all individuals in Hong Kong, including members of the Judiciary and including members of the Administration, will have reached certain conclusions as a result of events in the last weeks and months. I think that I don't wish to say anything else about the Judiciary, which has my full confidence. I don't wish to say anything, and nor have any of my honourable friends, which would cross the important boundary line between the executive and the judiciary. Though I have to say this: obviously, the events of last Sunday raised a lot of questions in people's minds and we therefore, in the Administration, welcomed the Chief Justice's offer to make the views which he was said to hold, by a functionary of the New China News Agency, clear to the Administration as well. And we will look forward in due course to hearing what those views may be, which I think the Chief Justice has said are of a technical and jurisprudential character. But nobody is doubting the role of the legislature in making laws, and I go further than that and point out the breadth and depth of the debate in 1991 when the Bill of Rights was being considered and drafted; all the consultations which took place with the Law Society, with which some honourable members are more familiar than others; the debate and discussion that took place with the Bar Council, with the community as a whole; the consideration that was given at the time to the so called New Zealand model. Though it has to be added that the President of the Appeal Court in New Zealand recently said that in practice there is not very much difference between the application of the law under the New Zealand model and under our model. All those matters were widely discussed and debated in Hong Kong at the time and this Legislative Council came to some sensible conclusions under which, I think I am right in saying, 36 Bills have been amended or changed or repealed since then, none of them - none of them with any detrimental effect to Hong Kong's way of life, to the stability of our society. Look around Hong Kong does this look an unstable society? Look at one or two other places in the region.

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Mr Mok Ying-fan (in Chinese); Mr President, a hot topic again. Mr Governor didn't want to mention this but I would like him to describe it once again. Recently from the press we know that the Chief Justice, Sir Ti Liang Yang, said that he will put something down in writing to be submitted to the CS very soon.

Now Mr Governor, do you think this is a kind of interference by the executive concerning the judiciary?

Governor: I don't think that the Chief Justice saying that he would give the executive in writing his views on the Bill of Rights represents an interference by the executive in the judiciary. My honourable friend the Chief Secretary didn't tell or instruct the Chief Justice to do that. She wouldn't have dreamt of doing so. Had she done so, which she wouldn't have dreamt of doing, the Chief Justice wouldn't have dreamt of complying, because that would have been interference in the judiciary. So, I think there is one of those authentic Hong Kong, whale-sized, red herrings crossing the path of the shoal of fish.