them the entire structure of laws based on them and other laws
based on other aspects of the UK sovereignty over Hong Kong.
11. It is clear therefore that the Fugitive Offenders (Hong
Kong) Order will cease to have effect on 1 July 1997, along with
other laws in or for Hong Kong. It is an axiomatic principle of
constitutional law that with the end of a particular sovereignty
or constitutional order, the laws enacted under its authority
lapse. It is for this reason that it is standard practice in the
Commonwealth that when a colony becomes independent, an express
provision is included in the new constitutional instruments for
the continuation of the existing laws and public offices (see
section 18 of the Indian Independence Act, 1947 and for a more
recent example, section 5 of the Solomon Islands Independence
order 1978). Similarly when the lawful government of a country
is overthrown by a coup d'etat, one of the first acts of the new
regime is a decree to preserve existing laws. Theoretical sup-
port for this basic constitutional principle, which the courts
have sometimes relied on, comes from Professor Hans Kelsen's
jurisprudential theory of the grundnorm under which
basic constitutional authority is displaced, all the laws which
were established on its basis lose their validity.
once the
12. The Hong Kong Act 1985 makes no provision for the continua-
tion of existing laws. Nor could it effectively have done that
as sovereignty over Hong Kong would pass to the PRC which would
have the power to decide on its future legal system.
The device
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