TNAG-2320-FCO40-3364-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1991 — Page 132

Ordinance is "entrenched".

It will be so whether or not the

United Nations Covenants are incorporated into the domestic

law of Hong Kong and remain in that law, unaltered,

unaltered, after

1997. It will be so, simply because the decision-makers are

judges operating within a legal tradition which, for many faults, has the strength of upholding and defending certain

basic civil rights.

The rôle of the courts in the common law tradition in

upholding these rights has not been the

the subject of deep

it is a function which is taken

analysis. In large measure,

for granted. In part, it is a

it is a function which derives from

the necessity (which is an aspect of the daily chore of

judges) to give meaning to language. That language may be

the language of common law judgments. More frequently,

nowadays, it is the language of legislation.

The Chinese

languages may be different, although I doubt it. Certainly,

the English language is irretrievably ambiguous. In part,

this is because the English language represents the marriage

of two important European linguistic schools: the Germanic

and the Latin. The Anglo-Saxon Celtic tongue of the original

inhabitants of

of the British Isles has been moderated by the

language of the Norman conquerors.

"official"

virtually any idea

law and government

Thus for

particularly in the official context of

there are usually two words or phrases:

Take "last will"

the one Germanic and the other Latin.

(Germanic) and "testament" (Latin) as an illustration. The

feature of the English language, which makes it

which makes it so rich in

literature,

ambiguities

presents ambiguities to judges.

They are

both in the text of legislation and in the

principles of the common law as expounded in the words of

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