TNAG-1440-FCO40-1924-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 154

布政司署

香港下亞根道

CONFIDENTIAL

622

GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

AX ME OUR REF.:

HRR 011/1

RECF.

來荫檔號 YOUR REF:

INDEX

Peter Thomson, Esq.,

British Embassy,

PEKING

My Dear Felin.

30 APR 1986

Азв

#ter

27th March, 1986

2821/4

A Liti 25/46

AjB 34 Ma

Not swe that helps

Mal. Not su

рону све гово

Legislative Council (Powers

and Privileges) Ordinance

Сът Ух

At the Governor's request the Law Draftsman has prepared a commentary on the Powers and Privileges Ordinance. This is enclosed. You will recall that at JLG II the Chinese team claimed that "LegCo (Powers and Privileges) Ordinance which enlarged LegCo's power had been enacted" (Peking Tel. No. 1730, para 11). David Wilson subsequently put them right (Part II of same telegram, Para. 13).

2.

The Law Draftsman's commentary demonstrates (one hopes) clearly that David was right and the Chinese wrong. You may like to have this handy. You may even want at some future time to draw on it to make it clear to the Chinese that their claim in the JLG was based on a misunderstanding of the true position. They are, I would add, not the only people who misunderstood it at the time and I am not suggesting that we would want to make a meal of this. The doctrine of inherent necessity, important though it undoubtedly is, is not to be found in everybody's briefcase.

3.

Nor, of course, are we suggesting that you hand the paper to our Chinese JLG colleagues. I suspect that this would only compound past misunderstandings. The main point nevertheless stands: the Ordinance simply wrote down what already existed. Any errors (a personal view) were ones of timing and presentation:

i.e. we might have avoided a bump if we had made this learned point to the

Chinese sooner.

c.c.

C. O. Hum, Esq. HKD

(J. Boyd) Political Adviser 27th March 1986

CONFIDENTIAL