CONFIDENTIAL
TOP COPY Q DIST?
pa
Con Dev. 121076
MDHOAN 8124
CONFIDENTIAL
FM FCO
TO IMMEDIATE HONG KONG
TELNO 85
OF 291516Z JAN 93
13 FEB 1993
INDE
INFO IMMEDIATE PEKING, UKREP JLG HONG KONG-
そし
YOUR TELNO 73: CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT: ONE MAN ONE VOTE
1. You asked for an opinion from FCO Legal Advisers on the issue raised in the Attorney General's Note on the one man, one vote question, which the Executive Council discussed at their meeting on 15 January. Legal Advisers also considered the Joint Memorandum by Messers Chang and Li, as well as Mr Edwards' opinion given to the Attorney General.
2. Our Legal Advisers are in general agreement with Mr Edwards' interpretation of the UK's reservation to the ICCPR (given effect by Section 13 of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights). Their conclusion is that this reservation should be adequate to counter any claims that by introducing one man one vote in Hong Kong we would be in breach either of Article 25 or of Article 26 of the ICCPR.
3. In the first instance it would be for the Hong Kong Courts to interpret the Bill of Rights. There is of course no guarantee that they would not interpret it narrowly, ie that asking people to choose between a geographical and a functional constituency vote was inconsistent with Article 21(b) of the Bill of Rights. However, as Mr Edwards argues in his opinion, it is likely that the Courts would hold that a reservation expressly linked to article 25(b) of the ICCPR, and designed to relieve the UK Government of the obligation to make two key institutions in Hong Kong elected, was also intended to relieve the Government of any obligation to ensure that elections for those institutions meet all the requirements specified by that same article.
4.
Our Legal Advisers agree with Mr Edwards' conclusion that a challenge to legislation requiring people with both a functional and a geographical vote to choose one or the other would fail. It would not get past first base because of the UK reservation to Article 25 ICCPR, which is reflected in Section 13 of the Bill of Rights, which in turn is to be interpreted in accordance with
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