TNAG-2289-FCO40-3293-Future-of-Hong-Kong-Basic-Law-1991 — Page 88

Zaw Drafting Committee (BLDC) the members of which included "compatriots in Hong Kong" who were selected in their personal capacities by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC); they were in no way

[4] representative of the Government of Hong Kong

The mainland members and the Chinese Secretariat of the BLDC nevertheless remained in substantial control of the drafting process. Even so, the drafting process was a remarkably open one; the press were kept informed of progress and there was a considerable debate within and outside the BLDC, particularly on matters on which the Joint Declaration had been less than explicit or had contented itself with generalities. The first complete draft was published in booklet form in April 1988; this was followed by a period of open "solicitation of opinions" in Hong Kong. A second draft, which took account of a number of comments made during the "solicitation" period, appeared in February 1989, and it too was followed by a further period of public solicitation of opinions in Hong Kong, a period interrupted by the events of the early summer of that year in and around Tianamen Square and the widespread reaction in Hong Kong to the suppression of the student occupation of the Square. The drafting was completed at a ninth plenary meeting of the BLDC in February 1990.

3。

The result is a Chinese law for the government of a part, however special, of the PRC. It is necessary to stress this point at the outset because, although the Basic Law will fall to be interpreted after 1997 within Hong Kong by courts which will continue to apply the common law and, therefore, disposed to adopt common law rules of construction, it will also fall to be interpreted by the authorities of the PRC as a Chinese law. Whatever faith is placed in the willingness and ability of Chinese officials to make the Basic Law work in accordance with the policies laid down in the Jont Declaration and to recognise that those policies may require them to accept different

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