TNAG-1366-FCO40-1812-Hong-Kong-Legislative-Council-(Powers-and-Privileges)-Bill-1-1985 — Page 17

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I should like

now to return once again to

general objectives we seek to achieve in moving

legislation today.

the

this

The principal

objective

is concerned with

identity; the need to establish a clear identity for Hong

Kong; and the Legislative Council of Hong Kong; and to have

that identity firmly established in our own Statute law, not

to have it diffused in a somewhat unsatisfactory way in various Orders and Ordinances and the case law, procedures

and practices followed by a Parliament

Parliament thousands of miles

away in the United Kingdom. We need to have Our own law,

here, in Hong Kong.

The legislation is one of a number of

of practical

measures designed to

to establish this identity; this high

degree of autonomy as it has been called in another context.

These measures have included the alternative form

of Oath endorsed earlier by this Council to enable Members

simply to swear their loyalty to the people of Hong Kong.

This change, in its turn, removed one of the obstacles to

the introduction of elections to membership of this

Council. Then, to enable elections to take place, the Royal

Instructions have been amended; legislation to provide for

various types of election has been introduced and passed

into law. Arrangements are being made to see that the