XN000022-1996-04-18 — Page 13

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Mr Szeto Wah (in Chinese): When the Constitutional Affairs Panel discussed with Government officials about the tenure of office for members in this Council, Government officials told us that our tenure of office would not necessarily be four years because you as the Governor are empowered to dissolve this Council any time. So, Mr Governor, before 30 June 1997, would you order on that day or before that day that this Council be dissolved to tie-in with the setting up of the provisional legislature?

Governor: Certainly not.

Mr Szeto Wah (in Chinese): In the last term of this Council a member passed away. unfortunately, and also another member was imprisoned, and they did not serve the four year term. So if Government officials use the example that the Governor has the power to dissolve this Council and say that we do not have a four year term, then is it equivalent to citing similar unfortunate examples of those who have passed-away or who have been imprisoned and who therefore did not serve the four year term? So do you think it is the same ridiculous logic if we use that?

Governor: I don't think the logic I am about to offer the honourable gentleman is ridiculous and I hope he won't think it ridiculous either. Honourable members are elected to this Council for four years and it is desirable that they should be able to serve their four years but nobody has ever suggested they have a legal entitlement, as it were, a four year contract. They don't.

One reason why they have not in the past and do not now has nothing to do with 1997 and it is the most important reason of all, and that is that, for example, the Hong Kong Governor could, I suppose, under the Royal Instructions and the Letters In those Patent, dissolve the Legislative Council and call for new elections. circumstances he would not feel obliged to pay everybody for the two years or three years or three-and-a-half years of service in the Legislative Council which they had been denied by an election.

In the United Kingdom we have five-year Parliaments but nobody has an entitlement to be paid as an MP for five years. It is exactly the same principle and I repeat, basically has nothing to do with 1997.

Mr Howard Young: Mr Governor, during your trip to London you said you raised the question of travel documents and of course right of abode which is linked to it, and I agree it is an issue which is imminent. It appears that this issue, now, is being tackled through a very perhaps should I say unique way by the Chinese Government, of rather than doing things with the Basic Law, to tackle it by some other sort of legal mechanism with regard to the Chinese Nationality Law.