TNAG-1332-FCO40-1762-Future-of-Hong-Kong-White-Paper-on-the-Joint-Declaration-1984 — Page 48

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3. The exact details of the organs of Government of the SAR will be worked out during the period of preparation of the Basic Law, but certain principles are laid down in this part of the Agreement. these, the most important are that the Government and Legislature will be composed of Hong Kong people, that the Legislature will be elected, and that the Government should be obliged to act in accordance with the law and should be accountable to the Legislature.

4.

The method of selection of the Head of the SAR Government is left open for decision at a later stage. At this stage it is not possible to predict when he will first become a fully elected Chief Executive. He will nominate the other principal members of the SAR Government, that is officials at the level of secretaries, and both the Chief Executive and these principal officials will be formally appointed by the Central Government in Peking. Officials at other levels will be appointed within the SAR.

5. Finally this part of the Agreement provides for the SAR to have its own regional flag and emblem, as well as the national flag of China.

(B)

THE LAWS OF HONG KONG

1. This part of the Agreement ensures the continuity of existing Hong Kong law beyond 1997. The provision for the SAR to have its own system of laws is fundamental to the concept of "one country, two systems". Since the law of the SAR will include the common law (meaning the law as found by the judges rather than as enacted by the Legislature) it will remain, as now, capable of dynamic adaptation to changing conditions and will be free to take account of developments in the common law elsewhere. That this is so is reinforced by specific provisions in Section III of Annex I providing that the Courts of the SAR will be able to refer to precedents in other common law jurisdictions, that judges of the SAR may be recruited from other common law jurisdictions and that SAR'S Court of Final Appeal may invite judges from other common law jurisdictions to sit on it.

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