TNAG-2778-FCO40-3995-Future-of-Hong-Kong-Basic-Law-1993 — Page 20

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Reference.

NPC Decision concerning the formation of the first Legislative Council. That Decision does not go into any great detail concerning the composition of functional constituencies, so I assume that these would have to converge with the Basic Law provisions. For the purposes of the 1995 elections, the Decision says that if the establishment of the last Legislative Council is in conformity with the relevant provisions of it and of the BL then convergence can occur. In practical terms, I would agree with Ms Barrett. There is no need for us to invent any "corporate bodies" or "functional sectors" to converge with the Basic Law. In effect they exist already, and the problem lies in defining them, or more exactly defining which corporate bodies or functional sectors will be involved in the voting and which will not. The Basic Law as we have it does not spell this out in any way (and indeed leaves the definition of the constituencies both geographical and functional

- to the post 1997 electoral law).

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7. I have answered this rather back to front.

I agree with what Ms Barrett says of the meaning of the term "corporate body" ("fading tuanti"). "Fading" does mean "statutory" or "stipulated by law". My own feeling is that it should be understood in the more general sense to which she refers (ie bodies with some legal existence, and the meaning is I think intended to be very wide ranging, encompassing commercial organisations such as the BOC to the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce or virtually any other organisation you care to name Doctors Association or whatever.). I would include the Urban Council. Ms Barrett excludes it on the grounds that it is not one of the "sectors" specified in Annex I (2). It is true that the word "sector" or "jie" does not appear at the end of the category in which "representatives of District based organisations" appear, but it does appear in the general description of all four "sectors" covered and I would argue that "members of the Legislative Council...CPPCC" is as much a "sector" in this sense as "the professions". Indeed the English translation of the "the professions" does not include any translation of the word "jie" ("sector") which is in the Chinese. I would argue that it does so because to include "sector" would be linguistically inappropriate. Similarly in both Chinese and English to include the word "sector" at the end of the catalogue that makes up the fourth group would be linguistically inappropriate. But that does not mean the group should not be understood as a "sector".

8. I do not quite understand your last question. Presumably a corporate body, being part of a functional constituency, would have a vote or votes (this is what Annex I says). How it exercises that vote is not yet determined.

R F Wye

Far East Section

Research & Analysis Dept OAB 2/125 210 6219/6216 22 February 1993

cc Ms Barrett Legal Advisers

Ms Brooks Legal Counsellor

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