TNAG-2225-FCO40-3196-Political-relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-Australia-1991 — Page 38

The former Attorney General of India, Mr Soli Sorabjee

outlined the experience of India with the

fundamental

freedoms provided under that country's independence

constitution. Dr Rajeev Dahvan also discussing the Indian

Constitution, suggested that Hong

suggested that Hong Kong might provide a

microcosm of new constitutional arrangements, suitable to be

considered in the numerous societies

societies in which the

in which the assertion

of peoples' rights for separate

for separate treatment within a wider

nation could be respected. The analogy of the Kurds was

referred to as were developments in the Baltic and Balkans in

Europe.

Dato' Param Cumaraswamy of Malaysia outlined the

difficulties which had arisen in Malaysia in the judicial

enforcement of basic rights when the Executive Government

took steps to remove senior judges of that country. Justice

Sarmiento of the Supreme Court of the Philippines explained

the difficulties of human rights enforcement in the

conditions prevailing in that country.

There followed sessions on

substantive rights.

Professor Kevin Boyle of the University of Essex outlined the

importance of freedom of

freedom of expression

as a key to the

enforcement of other rights. A number of Canadian speakers

explained the experience with the Canadian Charter of Rights

and Freedoms. This was highly relevant to Hong Kong as

Canada, like Hong Kong, had endured for most of its modern

history without a statement of legally enforceable

fundamental rights. Madam Justice Bertha Wilson, a

judge of the Supreme Court of Canada outlined developments

affecting women and the family under the constitutional

protection of privacy in Canada. Justice Walter Tarnopolsky

former

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