TNAG-2745-FCO40-3960-Visits-by-the-Executive-Council-of-Hong-Kong-(EXCO)-and-Legi-1993 — Page 68

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Notes:

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The Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons reported in 1989, after extensive evidence-taking in Hong Kong and in London:

We believe that full democracy must be introduced before 1997,and that, consistent with maintaining a necessary degree of continuity, should be introduced as soon as possible....this would mean in effect at the 1995 election. we consider that at the preceding election, in 1991, 50 percent of the members of the Legislative Council should be directly elected as the first stage of this process."

Three and a half years later, Hong Kong still awaits that development

Human Rights

If the rights and freedoms of the Hong Kong people are to have any chance of surviving 1997, they must be entrenched in Hong Kong's legal system. They must also be linked to international mechanisms for the protection of human rights.

To reinforce rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, the following measures need to be addressed as a matter of urgency:

the continued application to Hong Kong after 1997 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as promised by the Joint Declaration.(1)

the Hong Kong government must amend or repeal existing laws to bring them into conformity with the Bill of Rights.

entrenching the Bill of Rights into the Hong Kong legal system after 1997. The natural solution would be for China to entrench the Bill of Rights into the Basic Law.(2)

an independent human rights commission should be established to investigate allegations of human rights abuses and advise government on law reform and promote civic education on human rights.

See the Joint Declaration, Annex 1 Clause 12.

Britain is a signatory to the ICCPR, which is applied to Hong Kong by extension. China is not a signatory. Thus, either China must accede to this covenant before 1997; or allow Hong Kong to accecie directly.

Hong Kong's Bill of Rights was enacted in 1991, and lists 23 rights drawn from the ICCPR. The Letters Patent', which define the powers of the Governor of Hong Kong, were simultaneously amended to forbid the enactment of any future laws inconsistent with the ICCPR. But the authority of the Letters Patent lapses with the end of British rule.

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