TNAG-1844-FCO40-2619-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 38

23 MAR

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TRANSCRIPT B: HONG KONG SELECT COMMITTEE MEETING

22 MAR 89

FORSIGN SECRETARY:

16

Mi •

That is a possibility, yes.

As I say, starting off, as

Dental Mcrisiens on

ས་མ“ འ

Teich winted voi, without any funum. rights, the Joint Declaration makes provision for that and the Basic law therefore, to that extent, provides for the fundamentals to be respected, but they have not been translated in detail into the laws of the territory and the possibility is that they should now be translated into a Hong Kong Bill of Rights which would form part of the existing law which would continue after the transfer

of power.

ROVLAJIS:

And the Hong Kong Government can do that unilaterally,

although obviously there without consultation with the Chinese,

will be notification and exchanges between now and 1997?

FOREIGN SECRETARY:

Yes. As I understand it, a great deal of Hong Kong's law is

The whole process of the still being enacted and changed. localisation of law in Hong Kong is taking place because a large part of the law of Hong Kong is derived without explicit enactment from the English Common Law and that is being put on the Hong Kong statute book where it is felt necessary to do it now, and I think

that the Basic Law that this would form part of the same process: provides for respect for the international human rights