TNAG-1366-FCO40-1812-Hong-Kong-Legislative-Council-(Powers-and-Privileges)-Bill-1-1985 — Page 125

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DRAFT SPEECH BY HON STEPHEN CHEONG, OBE, JP

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

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12.6.85

Legislative Council (Powers and Privileges) Bill 1985

sir,

Hong Kong must be a place blessed with very good "Fung Shui". Somehow, we always manage to have the right group of people with the right calibre responding to our ever changing needs and contributing positively towards our future

developments.

Take this bill for example, prior to receiving the very belated avalanche of comments on the provision of this bill, Members of the in-house Ad Hoc Group, especially those who have had little or no legal training, were so overwhelmed by the dryness of the subject matter that we were unable to detect some very controversial yet important drafting

over-sights.

Even the public response was relatively docile from the date of the Gazetting of the Bill to just about a few days before the bill was scheduled to be read the second time in

this Chamber. Suddenly then, the subject matter was given an unexpected lift and in this regard the Hong Kong Affairs Society should be commended for their catalytic efforts. Since then, UMELCO has received representations from no less than 10 groups of public spirited organisations or commentators. Valid points raised by these representations did offer a lot of help in the process of further crystalisation of our thoughts on the

subject matter.

For the past 10 days tremendous efforts have been spent by us unofficials as well as the Administration in going over in detail all the observations submitted to us. The guiding light of our deliberation has been the underlying principle that the detailed provisions are meant to be a codification exercise of the present practice and that they

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