HKB 012/5
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
24 MAR 1993
IM
REGISTRY
PA
Action Taken
From:
Miss S Brooks
Legal Counsellor
Date:
16 March 1993
Mr Whitney
HKD
24)
AMENDMENTS TO LETTERS PATENT
My
1. I refer to Joseph Lai's letter to you of 12 March commenting on my revised draft of the Letters Patent. comments on the points raised in his letter are set out below.
2.
Article 2
I have retained my version which runs together Article 1 paragraphs (4) and (5) of the Hong Kong original draft. Despite the precedents, I see advantage in putting the definition of "the appointed day" in the Article to which it relates. I have in consequence put a reference to Article 2 (instead of "paragraph 2") in Article 1(3). I have not inserted a marginal note for Article 2 because this has not been past practice for similar Articles. Finally, I prefer the wording "and for the holding of elections" and as Hong Kong Government has no objection to it, I have retained it. I consider that there is a slight difference between this wording and the original wording in the Hong Kong draft which read "or to provide for the election of the members of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong"; "providing for elections" is less specific than "holding of elections". In any case the deletion of "or to provide for the election of the members of the Legislative Council" is consistent with the Hong Kong Government's proposal to delete the wording "laws of the Colony may provide for the election of members of the Legislative Council" and retain their original language in Article 4(1).
3.
Article 3(1)
I had previously considered amending Article VI (1) in the way suggested by Hong Kong Government and I am happy to adopt their suggestion. The heading in Article 3(1) will now need to read:
"3.-(1) Article VI (1) of the principal Letters Patent is revoked and replaced by the following new paragraph (1):-".
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