CONFIDENTIAL
Argument
3.
The Hong Kong Government estimate that 3.4 million Hong Kong BDTCS will be potentially eligible for registration as BN (0)s (and that as many as 2.55 million might apply to do
so) before 1 July 1997. There are only 5 years left to process these applications and so far only about 0.27 million BDTCs have obtained BN (O) passports. Hong Kong are planning an early advertising campaign to warn potential applicants not to miss the boat, but they believe the best practical solution would be to impose (by amending the 1986 Order-in-Council) a set of cut-off dates (for different age groups of BDTCS) in advance of the 1997 deadline, in order to spread the workload and ensure that everyone could be registered in time. (The Hong Kong Immigration Department used just such a system of cut-off dates to issue new identity cards to all adult Hong Kongers in the mid-1980s.) Hong Kong are delaying their advertising campaign until we can advise them on the legal feasibility of amending the
Order-in-Council.
4.
FCO and Home Office Legal Advisers have concluded that the existing legislation (and the UK Memorandum to the Joint Declaration) requires an applicant for BN (0) status to be registered before 1 July 1997. But the legislation entitles suitably qualified Hong Kong people to register as BDTCs (and BDTCs to register as BN (0) s up to midnight on 30 June
1997. And if an individual attempted to exercise his
entitlement on that date (eg someone who had only qualified
as a BDTC on that date) he would stand almost no practical
chance of being registered by midnight (and there is at present no power to register him after that date). Given Hong Kongers' tendency to leave things to the last minute, (together with the BDTC entitlement which will allow people to qualify to become BN (0)s up to the last minute), there is
the potential for very large numbers of people to be caught
JM3AAL/2
CONFIDENTIAL
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