Urgent Business: Hong Kong, Freedom of Expression and 1997
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1.
THE BASIC LAW
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
The future of Hong Kong is written in two documents: the Joint Declaration on the "Question of Hong Kong" adopted by China and Britain in 1984 and the document implementing that Declaration, the Basic Law, enacted by China's National People's Congress in April 1990. The Basic Law will become the constitution of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) from 1 July 1997.
[Section 2.1]1
The Basic Law in several important respects does not reflect the spirit of the Sino- British Joint Declaration, and in some areas is arguably in breach of the bilateral treaty. China's deliberate erosion of the Joint Declaration's promised "high degree of autonomy" for the SAR is likely to have serious consequences for the protection of the rule of law and for fundamental rights and freedoms after 1997, including freedom of expression. It is therefore a matter of urgency that the British government, as a treaty signatory, recognizes its moral responsibility to ensure that the Basic Law is in conformity with the Joint Declaration. Britain should immediately begin discussions with China to restore to the Basic Law the promises set out in 1984.
[Sections 2.2 - 2.4]
A number of articles of the Basic Law need urgent attention if democratic freedoms are to survive in Hong Kong:
Of special concern is Article 158 of the Basic Law which gives a general and overriding power of final interpretation of the SAR constitution to the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, a political body, thereby seriously eroding the constitutional independence of the SAR judiciary. As it stands, Article 158 is a mechanism whereby China can impose its interpretation of the Basic Law on the SAR in any case which comes before the SAR courts. The power of final interpretation of the Basic Law should be restored to the SAR courts, where the Joint Declaration had specifically stated it would rest.
[Section 2.2]
The Basic Law also curtails the development of full democracy in the SAR: without a genuine universal franchise, freedom of expression cannot be a wholly guraranteed
All notes in square brackets refer to sections in this Report.
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