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Responding to committee member, Professor Zou Deci's concern over the wider use of Chinese in the courts of Hong Kong, Mr Wong said an eight-phase implementation strategy had been adopted.

"The aim is to put in place a framework which allows the use of Chinese, along with English, in all court proceedings in Hong Kong before July 1, 1997," he said.

Meanwhile, Professor Van Boven noted with satisfaction that Hong Kong had distributed and disseminated human rights instruments and previous reports under the Convention.

Responding, another team member, Assistant Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr John Dean, assured the Committee that the Hong Kong Government would, as a matter of normal practice, distribute the concluding observations to the Legislative Council, to the public and to interested non-government organisations.

As regards the treatment of foreign domestic helpers and effective protection of their rights, member of the Hong Kong team and Principal Assistant Secretary for Security, Mrs Maureen Chan, said the two-week rule applied on premature termination of contract.

said.

"It was established to combat problems of overstaying and job-hopping," she

Foreign domestic workers received the same protection and rights under labour legislation as local worker, Mrs Chan stressed.

On the question on Vietnamese migrants (VMs), Mr Wong reiterated that Hong Kong had no wish to detain them, pointing out that the Hong Kong Government and the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees had been counselling them to return to Vietnam voluntarily.

The living conditions in the camps had been made as amicable as possible within the resource available, he said, stressing that the long-term solution of the saga lied in the VMs returning to their homeland rather than wasting their lives in the

camps.

Regarding reporting to the Convention in the future, the Country Rapporteur wished that suitable and special arrangements would be made between the Central Government of the People's Republic of China and the Special Administrative Region.