TNAG-2591-FCO40-3779-Appointment-of-Chris-Patten-as-new-Governor-of-Hong-Kong--Ap-1992 — Page 127

HKD 010/1

FROM: P F Ricketts

PS/Mr Patten

BASIC DOCUMENTS

73

Hong Kong Department

DATE: 27 April 1992

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cc: Mr Burns

A

B

C

D

1.

Mr Patten might find it useful to have the attached

copies of the key documents relating to Hong Kong:

- Letters Patent and Royal Instructions. These are the

Governor's constitutional texts. As such, they lay down the broad framework for governing Hong Kong but do not actually give much flavour of how the practical business of government is actually discharged. They contain some very wide ranging reserve powers for the Governor. Many of these are of course anachronistic: for example, the powers to overrule the advice of ExCo (Royal Instructions X11), to disallow laws passed by LegCo (Letters Patent VIII) and to:

dissolve LegCo (Royal Instructions XXVIIIA). None of these.. powers have been used in modern times;

Standing orders of LegCo;

- The Joint Declaration of 1984; the easiest version to read

is the White Paper format: the attached copy has an

introduction highlighting the main points; although it is

called a draft, it did not change from this version.

attach a pocket-sized edition;

- The Basic Law approved by China's National People's

Congress in 1990 and a commentary on the main points;

KEWAED/1

JRB

I also