SECRET
THE QUESTION OF CONVERGENCE
During the meeting of the Joint Liaison Group in Peking on November 26-29, 1985 both sides agreed on the need to achieve convergence between any reforms to the structure of Government in Hong Kong before 1997 and the structure of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR
SAR after 1997, and to conduct discussions and exchange views on this subject without preconceived ideas.
2
The development of representative government in Hong Kong has been based on the principle of building on the existing institutions which have served Hong Kong well; while allowing for further development, if that should be the wish of the
the community. Paper No 1 describes how the present govermental institutions in Hong Kong operate in practice and the inter-relationship of the various elements in the government structure, in particular the Governor, the Executive Council and the Legislative Council.
3
Paper No 2 describes the present state of Hong Kong opinion on the further development of the governmental system following the Review in 1987. Essentially there is likely to be little call for any fundamental change in the structure: the main attention is likely to be focussed on the question of introducing a number of directly elected seats into the Legislative Council and on that of the Presidency of that
Council.
The Joint Declaration
4
Under Article 3(12) of the Joint Declaration the policies stated in the Declaration, and the elaboration of them in Annex I to the Declaration will be stipulated in the Basic Law: the Joint Declaration contains a number of provisions on the structure and operation of the future SAR government. These are :
(a)
except for foreign and defence affairs which are the responsibilities of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be vested with executive, legislative and independent judicial power including that of final adjudication;
G.F. 316
SECRET 2
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.