TNAG-2736-FCO40-3944-Hong-Kong-role-of-the-Legislative-Council-(LEGCO)-1994 — Page 63

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they eventually began in the spring.

What has been the British aim in these talks? It is very simply this: electoral arrangements that are open, fair and acceptable to the people of Hong Kong. We want elections that offer people genuine choice, not elections vulnerable to

manipulation and corruption.

Jam

in

Why does this matter? It matters for this reason: if there is no level playing field for the elections to LegCo, what hope is there of preserving a level playing field elsewhere the Courts, in the business world, for the individual citizen? If you compromise the elections to the legislature, then you erode the foundations of the rule of law in Hong Kong. That is surely not what the signatories of the Joint Declaration had in mind when they said the LegCo of the SAR "shall be constituted by elections."

We have approached these negotiations in good faith. As I told this Council in October, we have offered major moves to try to meet Chinese concerns, conditional on our reaching an acceptable overall agreement, and without compromising on our principles.

But we have always made clear that the talks could not go on indefinitely. One of our responsibilities under the Joint Declaration is to ensure that the arrangements for the elections are in place on time.

Because the negotiations started later than we would have liked, and have continued for so long, the pressures of the legislative timetable now bear down upon us. That is why we have concentrated in recent rounds on exploring fully the prospects for an interim agreement. We had hoped it would be possible to deal with the less contentious issues that way.

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