TNAG-2877-FCO40-4149-Future-of-Hong-Kong-adaptation-of-laws-1993 — Page 131

8 September 1993

BY FAX

Mrs Jennie Chok CAB

HONG KONG

Dear Jenie,

ADAPTATION OF LAWS

37017

REC

』

Taken:

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

London SWIA 2AH

Telephone: 071-27c-3287

ра

1. Thank you for your fax of 26 August to Rod on the above subject. We have now received detailed comments from our legal advisers, as below.

2.

3.

We have no comments on Papers 4 and 5.

Paper 2: Marriage Ordinance (Cap 181)

Para 4 (d) proposes to replace "Governor" by "Chief Executive in Council" in Section 42, presumably to comply with the requirement in BL56 that the Chief Executive consult the Executive Council before making subordinate legislation. We believe that the term "Chief Executive in Council" does not appear in the BL. Are you proposing to define this term when the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance (Cap 1) is adapted?

Paper 2: Marriage Reform Ordinance (Cap 178)

We think that there is a mistake in para 5(a), which proposes replacing "Governor" by "Chief Executive" in sections 2 and 22, but omits to replace the reference to "Governor" in section 3 (unless our copy of the Ordinance is out of date). However, we would suggest that a better approach would be to replace the definition of "appointed day" in section 2 with a reference to 7 October 1971. Or, perhaps better still, all references in the text to the "appointed day" could be replaced by the actual date. Either way, section 3 could be deleted; and if our latter suggestion is followed, the definition of "appointed day" in section 2 could also be deleted.

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