TNAG-2225-FCO40-3196-Political-relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-Australia-1991 — Page 25

different agenda and mission, is not

is not an idea that is accepted

On the contrary, it is

or

even respected in China.

frequently denounced

as a Western bourgeois idea. The

proposed Final

Final Court of Appeal for Hong Kong, being

established pursuant to the Basic Law under the Constitution

of the

as

the PRC, must ultimately be subject to the Standing

Committee of the NPC upon any controversy relevant to the

meaning of the Basic Law or the impact on Hong Kong laws of

the laws and Constitution of the PRC. For this reason the

Final Court of Appeal should more properly be described

the "Almost Final" Court of Appeal for Hong Kong. And the

difficulty specially presented is that it is a court subject

not to another court sharing a similar ethos but to a

political committee of Party members more likely to be

responsive to those in power in Peking than to enduring

notions of fundamental human rights, the independence of the

judiciary or the rule of law.

Seventhly, the delay in establishing even such a Final

Court of Appeal of

of incontestably respected and indigenous

lawyers must be a source for growing concern. The

Sino-British Joint Liaison Group failed in April 1991 to

agree on a date for the setting up of the Final Court of

Appeal which it is intended should take over from the Privy

Council after 1997. A Joint Liaison Group subcommittee has

been discussing the question of such a Final Court for more

than two years. Discussions in the full group began in

August 1990. The representatives of the United Kingdom are

reportedly keen to establish the Final Court of Appeal by

1992, So that it will be fully operational in advance of

It has been reported that the representatives of the

1997.

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