TNAG-1858-FCO40-2633-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-memoranda-and-minutes-of-me-1989 — Page 23

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 5 July 1989

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I would suggest further that the provisions of this Bill of Rights must be entrenched in the Basic Law as paramount and not subject to all the other laws of the HKSAR.

I suggest also that the United Kingdom should immediately extend ratification of the European Covenant on Human Rights and its acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights to Hong Kong, as in the case of a number of other overseas dependent territories. This would permit aggrieved individuals in Hong Kong to take their claims directly to the court, from which rulings are binding on member states.

Further, I suggest that Her Majesty's Government should, on behalf of Hong Kong, ratify the Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights so as to permit individuals to take their claims of violation of the covenant directly to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. And the competence of the Human Rights Committee to hear claims from individuals in Hong Kong must continue to be recognized by the Chinese Government after 1997.

In short, the protection of human rights must be secured both before and after 1997.

Progress towards representative government

I agree with the FAC's belief that full democracy must be introduced in Hong Kong before 1997. I also agree with their recommended time-table of having 50% directly elected seats on the Legislative Council in 1991, and 100% in 1995. I also support the FAC's recommendation on the distribution of seats for the 1991 election.

But as to the method of election of the first Chief Executive, I regret that the FAC has fallen into error.

In proposing that the first Chief Executive be elected by an electoral college, it is clear that the FAC did not wish to "risk confrontation with the PRC." But the FAC also insisted that "this electoral college should itself be democratically constituted."

The most important question the FAC failed to answer is this: Should Beijing be allowed to influence, or even control, the election of the first Chief Executive?

If the answer is in the affirmative, then I can only say that after the Tiananmen Square massacre, no one in Hong Kong will accept a Chief Executive who acts purely according to instructions from Beijing, regardless of how unreasonable those instructions may be.

But if the answer to the question is in the negative, then the only acceptable method is by universal suffrage.