XN000022-1995-12-01 — Page 8

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Chinese drafts for all legislation prepared

The Legal Department has prepared Chinese drafts for all ordinances and subsidiary legislation which were enacted in English only, the Attorney General, Mr Jeremy Mathews, said today (Friday).

Speaking at the annual general meeting of an international association of law firms which was attended by representatives of law firms from 16 countries, Mr Mathews said by the end of November this year, of all the ordinances and subsidiary legislation enacted only in English language, the Chinese texts of 174 ordinances had been approved by the Bilingual Laws Advisory Committee (BLAC) and declared authentic by the Governor-in-Council.

Of the remaining ordinances, drafts of 101 items had been examined by BLAC, and drafts of all other ordinances and subsidiary legislation that were to remain in force had been prepared by the Legal Department, he said.

"My target is to have the Chinese texts of all that legislation authenticated before July 1, 1997," Mr Mathews said.

The Attorney General also disclosed that since the first bilingual ordinance was enacted in April 1989, all ordinances, other than those amending monolingual ordinances, had been enacted bilingually.

By the end of November this year, a total of 132 bilingual principal Ordinances had been enacted. In addition, 47 bilingual amending ordinances had been enacted, and hundreds of pieces of bilingual subsidiary legislation had been made, he said.

At present, there are more than 600 principal Ordinances and about 1,000 pieces of subsidiary legislation in Hong Kong.

Outlining the Legal Department's work in preparation for the transfer of sovereignty in 1997, Mr Mathews said of the over 200 multilateral international agreements extended by the United Kingdom to Hong Kong, the British and Chinese sides of the Joint Liaison Group (JLG) had reached agreement, in principle, on the continued application of 170 treaties.