TNAG-2767-FCO40-3984-Hong-Kong-and-the-media-interviews--press-briefings-and-the--1993 — Page 36

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Gallagher

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MR CHRIS PATTEN INT DAVID FROST

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LONDON

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4 APRIL 1993

- 8

MR PATTEN:

I do not think you can have the rule of law without a credible

Legislative Council, I do not say a totally democratic, but a

credible Legislative Council, My bottom line is that we should

have arrangements for electing the 1995 election legislature which are fair, I do not want to have a rigged election, I do not want to have elections which produce a rubber stamp Legislative

Council. I think that if you have a rubber stamp legislature you undermine the rule of law just as if you erode freedom of the

press you undermine the rule of law.

INTERVIEWER:

Why

was that not true for the last 20 years?

MR PATTEN:

It has been true for the last 20 years.

INTERVIEWER:

So we should have done something about it then?

MR PATTEN:

No, but what we do have to assert is that the Joint Declaration which we negotiated means what it says, it is not just a fig leaf behind which we can withdraw from Hong Kong in 1997 with a modicum of honour, it actually means what it says on the paper.