TNAG-2174-FCO40-3111-Hong-Kong-Bill-of-Rights-1990 — Page 138

power becomes

laid down in the Joint Declaration, which states that the of final adjudication is to be vested in Hong Kong. This particularly important with the enactment of the Bill of Rights, and we therefore call on the British government to impress on the Chinese government the need to ensure that the power to interpret the Basic Law should be vested in Hong Kong courts.

3) The freeze period:

The draft Bill proposes that there should be a two-year

freeze period before it is applied to existing legislation. The government argues that the freeze period is necessary to allow time to remove inconsistencies in existing laws.

We reject such an argument on the grounds that it is more important to give the community as much time as possible to familiarise itself with the new system. The public should therefore be allowed to challenge the Bill from the date of its commencement. The government should move quickly to amend laws which are deemed to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights.

Further, the government

should already have a clear idea of the given that the

laws which may be inconsistent with the Bill, ICCPR has been in force in Hong Kong since 1976.

We believe the government should be aided in its review of existing laws by an independent human rights commission, which should highlight inconsistencies between the Bill of Rights and Hong Kong laws and consider complaints from the public about human rights violations.

4) The Hong Kong Bill of Rights:

Part II of the draft incorporates 24 articles based on provisions in the ICCPR. These largely follow the wording of the relevant provisions in the ICCPR. We are aware that the ICCPR sets down minimum human rights standards for signatories to follow, and that a number of provisions contain limitation clauses.

For example, articles 8, 10, 15, 16 and 19 in the Bill of Rights stipulate that liberty of movement, the right to a public court hearing, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of opinion and expression, and freedom of association can be limited for reasons such as the protection of national security, public order, public health or morals.

Clause 5 in the draft Bill in particular gives rise to concern, insofar as it allows the government, in times of public to limit certain rights, including freedom of

emergency, expression.

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