addition to the Election Committee, were Legco voting procedures, the number of directly elected seats in Legco, and the restrictions on the nationality of Legco members. In each of these three issues, the Basic Law failed to adopt Britain's proposals and certainly did not meet the wishes of the Hong Kong people. In these circumstances it is difficult to see there being any agreement, secret or otherwise, between the two sovereign powers.
Since there appears to be no preexisting agreement between Britain and China on the composition of the 1995 Election Committee, it is quite appropriate for new proposals to be made. Such proposals should however be in accordance with the Basic Law and Joint Declaration if the through train principle is to be preserved.
Consistency with the Basic Law
The Joint Declaration does not mention an Election Committee, stating merely that the SAR legislature shall be constituted by elections. Annex II of the Basic Law provides for the composition of the 1999 Election Committee (on the basis of the Annex I model), but specifically excludes the 1997 legislature (article 2). Therefore, there is no restriction on the form of Election Committee to be established in 1995. Whatever form, then, that the Election Committee takes, Legco members elected by it may serve through until 1999 under the through train principle. The Governor's proposal for the 1995 Election Committee to be composed of district board members is consistent with the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.
Functional constituencies
It has been proposed that the membership of the existing functional constituencies be broadened for the 1995 Legco elections. It has also been proposed that the nine new functional constituency seats to be granted in accordance with Annex II of the Basic Law be allocated to the entire working population of the nine sectors into which the economy is classified. The complaint has been made that these proposals breach the spirit of the Basic Law.
However the Basic Law gives no guidance on the concept "functional constituency". The term is merely introduced in Annex II without definition or example.
Is there any internationally-recognised definition of "functional constituency". Unfortunately again, while there are historical examples of functional constituency systems, they are obscure and offer no assistance to Hong Kong's unique case.
The existing functional constituencies offer no consistent precedent that could serve as a guide. In the labour constituency, it is the trade unions rather than the individual union members who have the vote. In the professional constituencies, although individual professionals are organised into firms which might be regarded as parallel to trade unions within the labour constituency, it is the individual members of the professions who have the vote except that in the case of social workers the vote belongs to the welfare agencies rather than the individual social worker. There is no
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