TNAG-2168-FCO40-3105-House-of-Commons-Foreign-Affairs-Committee-inquiry-into-Hong-1990 — Page 137

FAC file ра

Pc Ryh

Ms Marsden, HKD

From:

Paul Fifoot

Legal Advisers

Date: 5 July 1990

нко ollll 011/1

RECEIVED

STRY

1 0 JUL 1990

FAC: MR MAUDE'S EVIDENCE: 11 JULY

DESK OFFICE:

INDEX

PA

1. I have no comments on "Points to Make" under the rubric, Basic Law, until we come to the appointment of the Chief Executive. There I think it would be more logical to reverse the third and second tirets. The third tiret deals with the

I

first Chief Executive and the second deals with subsequent Chief Executives until the whole procedure is changed. suggest you combine those two tirets as follows:-

"In the interim, there are two provisions for selecting the Chief Executive:-

(a)

[Set out third tiret];

(b)

Subsequently Annex 1 provides for the following method for selecting the Chief Executive

....

Bill of Rights

2. I think we had better look at objective 1 after the weekend. As regards the second paragraph of "Points to Make", there is a high element of lesé majesté in the answer. I would suggest you substitute the following:-

3.

"One way of providing that the Bill of Rights will have a similar authority before 1997 to that provided by Article 39 of the Basic Law would be to make a

comparable provision in the Letters Patent. We are giving consideration to such a provision."

$

In the third paragraph of "Point to Make", I suggest you add in line 1 after "ICCPR" the words "as applied to Hong Kong".

4.

On matters other than Basic Law and Bill of Rights, I have noted the first tiret of "Channels for dialogue with the Chinese". I am quite sure the Chinese would hate "but we reinstated this in September" which implies that it is the UK who decide whether JLG meets or not.

5. Mr Paul's minute of 5 July has an additional series of points on the Basic Law. I think the line should be as

follows:-

3 PFAAD

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