TNAG-1440-FCO40-1924-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 175

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4.

iii) A judgement given by the courts of Hong Kong on 1 June 1997 needs to be enforced in August 1997 as if it were a judgement of the courts of the Hong Kong SAR.

It is possible to deal with these and all the other kind of continuation cases by broadly worded legislative provisions so long as the legislative provision is of undisputed effect from 1 July 1997.

5.

I would not expect the Basic Law to deal with these matters in detail but I would think it desirable that the Basic Law did contain a transitional provision which made special reference to a transitional provision. As I have inferred above, I can anticipate objections to a further law of the NPC. However what might be feasible would be a provision in the Basic Law which constituted a general continuation provision in relation to the laws of Hong Kong and a particular, perhaps parenthetical reference, to a law of Hong Kong making transitional provision from UK Hong Kong to the Hong Kong SAR.

Panktifoor

Paul Fifoot

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