XN000022-1996-10-03 — Page 15

14.

-

I would only add one point by way of clarification and that is that the proposals that we have put on Basic Law 23 offences and on the Official Secrets Act are in our judgement completely in line with the Bill of Rights and that's an argument for getting them on the Statute Book as soon as we reasonably can though they will obviously be the occasion for some debate. They're not, I'd just like to add, the only things that we have to do in order to complete the job of aligning our Statute Book with the Bill of Rights, there are one or two other pieces of legislation as well which are also contentious.

Mr Howard Young: Mr Governor, I don't want to go through worn out arguments on the legality or otherwise of the Provisional Legislature, or whether it is a good idea or a bad idea or necessary, but I notice you used the term "dismantle" the current LegCo a while ago. I was wondering whether you were using it in the constitutional and legal sense or in a more general sense because I believe that this Council's platform ends anyway with the end of British rule.

Can you confirm whether there are any moves in Parliament to change or amend the Royal Instructions or Letters Patent to allow the current Legislature to straddle beyond 1997? If there are not then do you not think that the argument really should focus on allowing members to continue to serve the Legislature up to the day, which, by the way, is a different nomenclature in Chinese. It's really the argument should be focused on allowing all, or if not all then as many as possible who are willing to serve the Legislature of the day after 1997?

Governor: I appreciate the point the honourable gentleman is making and even though, as he knows, I don't entirely agree with him I recognise that he tries to approach these issues in a constructive way. He is of course right to say that there is a change of sovereignty on June 30, 1997, and there was never any way in which this Council could proceed to the end of its term without something happening which took account of that fact, of that changeover.

In the discussions that we had in 1992-93 we were proposing to Chinese officials that the trigger which could be pulled on June 30, or rather, perhaps I can make it sound less dangerous, the gear-change which should take place on June 30, could be in the form of some sort of oath which honourable members would take. recognising the change that had taken place in sovereignty. I think it is an open secret that Chinese officials wanted to apply a subjective test as well as an objective test and that was not something which we could accept.

But the honourable gentleman is right constitutionally in what he says, no British Act of Parliament could deal with matters post June 30, 1997. On the other hand, good sense and the interests of Hong Kong should, in my judgment, have made it possible for this Legislative Council should still make it possible for this Legislative Council - to complete its four-year term.

-