TNAG-2713-FCO40-3919-Parliamentary-relations-draft-White-Paper-on-Representative--1993 — Page 37

reduced from 16 to 10 and appointed membership from 30 to 22;

and that 24 members should be elected indirectly 12 by an

Electoral College and 12 by functional constituencies. The

White Paper also noted that the consultation exercise had

revealed "strong public support for the idea of direct

elections but little support for such elections in the

immediate future". The question of whether direct elections

should be introduced at the Legislative Council elections due

in 1988 was explicitly left open for consideration in a further review in 1987.

6.

After 1984, there was increasing public debate on the

question of elections in Hong Kong. The 1985 Legislative

Council was more active than its predecessors, and debated this

and other important issues openly, rather than in closed

session.

7.

During this period China's Basic Law for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), which will enter into force on the transfer of sovereignty on 1 July 1997, was being developed by the Basic Law Drafting Committee, appointed by the Chinese National People's Congress in 1985. A Basic Law

Consultative Committee was formed in Hong Kong to reflect the

views of Hong Kong people to the Drafting Committee. A first

draft of the Basic Law came out in 1988, and the Basic Law was

finally promulgated in April 1990. It spells out more fully

the constitutional arrangements for post-1997 Hong Kong as promised in the Joint Declaration. People's Congress", annexed to the Basic Law, set out in some

detail the method for forming the first legislature of the Hong

Kong SAR in July 1997, including its composition. The Decision

also set out the basis on which members of the Legislative

Council elected in 1995 could serve through 1997 to 1999 (the

so-called through train concept). The text of this decision is

at Annex 2. The provisions of the Basic Law and the associated

A "Decision of the National

statement26.8/BRIEFS/NJH

8