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systems and had begun a course in Portuguese law, in Chinese, Portuguese and English, in the local university. However, Gomes doubted whether thes measures would be sufficient to provide the senior echelon of Chinese officials by 1999. He was certain that there would continue to need to be Portuguese lawyers and judges well after 1999.
(d) Another major problem for the Portuguese was adapting Portuguese law to Macao. Portuguese law, based on the continental system, was based on a series of long and complicated codes. It was clearly impossible to translate all these codes into Chinese (it would take 20 years), yet the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration said that the legal system in Macao would remain basically the same. It would be necessary for the Portugues to decide which of these codes was really applicable to Macao (traditiona Chinese law on family and inheritance still operates in Macao) and then adapt and translate these provisions into Chinese. This was going to be a mammoth task and made no easier by the lack of Portuguese-speaking Chinese or Portuguese with a knowledge of China (at this point, seemed rather wistful about the position of HKG). Gomes commented, rather ruefully, that although Britain had 7 or 8 universities that taught Chinese, Portugal had none.
(e) Gomes said that the Chinese had agreed that Macanese (ethnic Portuguese
born in Macao of families who had been there in some cases for several hundred years) and even some Portuguese could sit on the Macao BLDC. The Macao Basic Law would need to be different in detail from the Hong Kong Basic Law, but Gomes felt that the overall structure would be similar. Assertions by leaders of the Chinese community in Macao that the Basic Law would be different was mainly a political assertion of Macao's autonomy: the Chinese in Macao did not want simply to be seen as an adjunct of Hong Kong.
(f) Dr Gomes agreed with me on the importance of educating the Chinese in the
complexities and facts of life in Hong Kong and Macao. Recently a
Chinese delegation of lawyers and judges from Canton had visited Macao, and shown great interest in aspects of the Portuguese legal system that could be adapted to Chinese use.
(g) With a view to 1999, the Portuguese were now making efforts to control
the border. This was also a major task, as little effort had been made to do this in the past. The first stage was building a new customs/ immigration post (a la Lowu?).
2.
However,
I am not clear on how much of the above is new or interesting. Dr Gomes appeared to be a frank interlocutor and one who welcomed a visit fro a member of the British Government. I believe it would be well worth our while to continue contact with him, either with visitors from Peking and the FCO, or by visits from PA's office in Hong Kong.
CC:
FCOV
C T Wood Esq, HKD, FCO
G H Leicester Esq, UKREP JLG, HONG KONG BTC, HONG KONG
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S C Riordan
Second Secretary (Chancery)
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