HKK 040/53
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
23 NOV 1984
DESK OFFICER
CONFIDENTIAL
1) T
REGR
FROM:
PA
Action Taken
F Burrows, Legal Counsellor
.
め
DATE:
16 November 1984
cc:
Mr Darwin
Mr Fifoot
INDEX
Galsworthy
Tarunad
Яс. Вним
Mr Galsworthy, HKD
HONG KONG BILL
Im
Mi
Mr Aust
Mr Wood
Mr Powell, HKD
1. It may be useful for me to set down some of my preliminary comments on the draft Bill enclosed with Parliamentary Counsel's letter to me of 15 November, and some of the questions to which I think we should address our minds.
The Long Title
2.
We shall need to satisfy ourselves that this title
is sufficiently wide to cover all the things we may wish
to do under the Orders in Council. See also paragraphs 5 and 6 below.
Clause 1(1)
3. This provides that Her Majesty shall cease to have any "sovereign rights or title" over any part of Hong Kong. In this respect Parliamentary Counsel has relied on some rather old precedents. We need however to distinguish between territorial sovereignty, and title to land in private law. To give a concrete example, after 1997 it is possible that the Crown may wish to retain some private law title to premises in Hong Kong for use by the British Representative, although the Crown will retain no sovereignty over any part of the territory. I wonder therefore whether it would be better to use the rather more modern precedent of Section 1 of the Cyprus Act 1960, by providing that Her Majesty shall cease to have "sovereignty or jurisdiction" over any part of Hong Kong. This makes it clear that sovereignty terminates and there will be no exercise of extra-territorial jurisdiction, such as was claimed in other parts of China while they were under Chinese sovereignty.
Clause 1(2)
4. I agree with the suggestion put to me by Jonathan Powell that it would be preferable to give the Joint Declaration its full correct title, and to end with the words "... which was signed in Peking on 20 December 1984". A second point is that
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CONFIDENTIAL
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