TNAG-2320-FCO40-3364-Human-rights-in-Hong-Kong-1991 — Page 144

lately by

ruments as

suggested by the

Bangalo

Declaratio

ng Kong; however, there is hope that th

departing

effective

leave régime will

frights,

based

the people with

the upon

internationa

a

covenants

is hoped

some way,

d to in article 39 of the Basic Law.

at least for fifty years, thi

I

basic

of

justiciab enforced a branches Overnment*0013:

Rights CH

the courts;

will remain

inviolable;

b

and be interpreted, declared and

judiciary independent

of the

"political

issues moment

Realpolitik to

I aside for a

Ι

which 1 eventually return.

of

If such a Bill of Rights

could incorporated and entrenched in the law of Hong Kong,

the

juciary performing its tasks in relation to it would

not do so unaided.

centuries

of ni

It would have available to it three

of judicial exposition of the United Kingdom Bill

of 1688; tw centuries of the judicial exposition of the Bill of Rights which form the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution (1790) and the more recent and possibly more relevant experience of Canada and other Commonwealth jurisdictions which belatedly embraced the bill of rights idea.

There will be others with more relevant experience to examine the rôle of the judge in expounding and applying the Canadian Charter. Interpreting basic rights, at least stated in a document like the Charter, has required common law judges to modify the narrow techniques which have, sometimes beneficially, marked the interpretation of ordinary legislation. A Charter requires judges to embrace a degree of judicial activism which even the boldest spirits of the

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