XN000022-1996-12-03 — Page 5

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Question: ... the British Nationality Scheme ... recommendation that ... has just said that Hong Kong people... with British right of abode will not enjoy the protection of British Embassies after 1997 if based in Hong Kong. So what kind of protection will the British Government offer?

Governor: I hope they won't need any protection but as I have said, if they are in any other country they will get exactly the same protection as anybody else travelling on a British passport would get. As to their position in Hong Kong, I suggest you direct your question to Chinese officials who have said some rather unhelpful things about the British passport.

Question: Governor, what is the practical problem - would you recommend that when

civil servant assistant to the Chief Executive, would you recommend some kind of expert from the Legal Department who has had special knowledge in the law drafting they are being asked to help the CE - what if they be asked to draft some statute regarding the Provisional Legislature?

Governor: Don't you think that rather than answering entertaining hypothetical questions it would be more sensible for me to have this discussion with the Chief Executive designate first? Yes I repeat, as far as the Government is concerned we think that there is no justification for a Provisional Legislature and we think that were a Provisional Legislature to do anything before 30 June it would be questionable in law.

Question: If the Provisional Legislature actually was held in Hong Kong next month, will the Police offer any security measures to protect...?

Governor: The Police always, operating within the law and provide people with the right to meet, the right to demonstrate within the law, the right to make their own views clear within the law, so you can tell yourself what the answer is.

But I think that the process of selecting members for the Provisional Legislature is inevitably going to be controversial. We have got a situation in which a purported legislature is going to be made up of people who are appointing one another from the Selection Committee or is going to be made up from people who have failed to get elected to a properly constituted legislature. I think inevitably, as I have said, that is going to cause controversy and argument. It is not my making, it is the making of Chinese officials. I am sure you will have noticed what the International Commission of Jurists said on the subject yesterday. Thank you very much indeed.

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