TNAG-2169-FCO40-3106-House-of-Commons-Foreign-Affairs-Committee-inquiry-into-Hong-1990 — Page 51

61.

Mr Wells

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In 1991 the first direct elections to the Legislative Council

will take place. Are you satisfied that the current laws of Hong Kong will

permit the right of assembly and, indeed, the right to carry out an

election, which at the moment are conditions which appear not to be present

in view of the arrest of some people trying to carry out their democratic

duties by holding meetings and using loudspeakers to address those meetings

because they did not receive some kind of a licence from the authorities?

Clearly the existence of such laws would inhibit the holding of elections.

in Hong Kong if they were to persist and, in view of what you have said,

that you are going to freeze the Bill of Rights in order to examine laws of

Hong Kong over a period of perhaps a year or longer, then clearly it may be

that the laws of Hong Kong really do not permit the proper holding of

elections at present.

1 do not believe (Mr Maude) I am confident that is not the case. There is certainly There is anything

nothing in Hong Kong's public order provisions which is inconsistent with

the provisions of the Convention Hong Kong has such public order

provisions concerning loudspeakers which is not a unique feature in Hong

Kong; it is common throughout democracies that there are such public order

provisions - for the preservation of people's sanity apart from anything

else! I do not think there is anything sinister in it. Can I just

momentarily, Mr Chairman, refer to Mr Lawrence's last question? Having

looked further at Article 39, I think the answer to his question is

explicit there. What it says is that provisions of the Covenants "shall

remain in force and shall be implemented through the laws of the Hong Kong

Special Administrative Region". That means that it is essential and

desirable for exactly that to happen, for there to be a Bill in the corpus

of the Hong Kong law which does implement it. This is what we are doing

(Maurity

not tre

this is precisely

what

HKG

are

checking)

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