TNAG-2738-FCO40-3951-Hong-Kong-Letters-Patent-1993-1993 — Page 154

28 June 1993

CONFIDENTIAL

Letters Patent fils

BY FAX

Miss Vivian Sum

Constitutional Affairs Branch

Government Secretariat

Lower Albert Road

Hong Kong

RIEU

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

59

London SW1A 2AH

Telephone: 071- 2702651

HKB

012/5

REC

~ISTRY

to Jus Kning

IM

PA

REGISTRY

Sken

Dear Vivian,

COMPOSITION OF 1995 LEGCO: AMENDMENTS TO LETTERS PATENT AND ROYAL INSTRUCTIONS

Thank you for your letters of 1 June and 23 June to Miss Paris. I apologise for not having replied to you sooner.

Although the 1993 Letters Patent/Additional Instructions were approved at the Privy Council meeting which was held on 30 April 1993, the date on which they were made should be the date on which they are actually signed by the Queen. Therefore, as the Additional Instructions were signed by the Queen on 20 June, the date at the bottom of the Instructions should read 20 June. The Letters Patent have not yet been signed. This is a complicated process involving the Royal Warrant, the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Chancellor, but they should be signed within the next two - three weeks.

Accordingly, the amendments to the Letters Patent and Royal Instructions should not be gazetted until the Letters Patent have actually been signed by the Queen (even though she has already approved them in principle). I will let you know as soon as the Letters Patent have been signed, so that you may proceed with gazettal of the two sets of amendments when, as a matter of policy, it is decided to gazette them. Please note that they come into force on the date of publication in the Gazette. It is intended that both instruments should be gazetted together so that they come into force together.

In answer to your question about the venue at which the Additional Instructions were made, the last clause of the Instructions reads "Given at Our Court at St. James's this [twentieth] day of [June] in the Forty-second year of Our Reign." The last clause of the Letters Patent will read "Witness Ourself at [

] the [ ] day of [ ]

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CONFIDENTIAL