TNAG-2936-FCO40-4211-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-British-National-(Overseas)-1993 — Page 26

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

10 November 1993

92

香港立法局

一九九三年十一月十日

92

MISS CHRISTINE LOH: Mr President, it is extraordinary that we should have today's debate at all. The people of Hong Kong had thought that it was beyond the realms of possibility that a national could be denied the right to re-enter his own country. But this was what happened to Mr HAN Dongfang, a Chinese national, who now languishes in Hong Kong.

While Mr HAN might still have a formal Chinese national status, his expulsion and the subsequent cancellation of his travel documents by the Chinese Government have effectively rendered him stateless. It would appear therefore that Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides that citizens cannot be banished from their own countries, had been violated.

As he cannot re-enter his own country, he cannot exercise any of his citizenship rights there. Outside his own country, he can neither re-enter it nor receive consular protection from his government. Mr HAN is forced to depend on the generosity of third party countries for refuge.

Almost as an afterthought, it seemed, the Chinese Public Security Ministry said that Mr HAN was expelled because he had violated Article 54 of the Chinese Constitution and other Chinese laws.

Very well. Then why not arrest Mr HAN and try him when he was on Chinese territory? Article 54 of the Chinese Constitution states that Chinese citizens "must not commit acts detrimental to the security, honour and interests of the motherland." It would appear that the contravention of such vague notions is administrative expulsion without the due process of law.

Chinese officials have said that Mr HAN might be able to return to China if he "repented". If Mr HAN had indeed violated Chinese law, then is repentence to the Chinese Government a substitute for the judicial process? The Chinese Government is then also the sole arbiter of the form and the substance of the repentence.

And, practically, what does the Chinese Government expect Mr HAN to do if he should be so inclined as to "repent"? Would he have to take himself to the New China News Agency in Hong Kong, or to a Chinese embassy elsewhere, to try out his "repentence" to see if it would satisfy Peking? This is quite absurd.