TNAG-2990-FCO40-3574-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-talks-betwee-1992 — Page 150

an electoral law of the HKSAR. The composition and ratio of that Legislative Council is however, left open. This is because in the case of the first Legislative Council, these details will need to be spelt out, not in an electoral law of the HKSAR, but in an electoral law of Hong Kong pre 1997. It is for this reason that the Chinese very properly did not spell out the details of the composition of the Election Committee for the first term of the Legislative Council in the Basic Law. The Decision of the NPC of 4 April 1990 on the Method of Formation of the First Government and the first Legco of the HKSAR provides in paragraph 6 for the numbers of the members of that first Legco and how members are to be returned. It does not, however, spell out the details of the division of geographical constituencies, voting methods, delimitation of functional sectors, seat allocation and election methods because these could not be spelt out in a Chinese law but only in a Hong Kong law introduced before 1 July 1997; the reason for this is that the first Legco will need to be up and running very soon after 1 July 1997 and it cannot, of course, enact a law on the composition of the Election Committee which will help to form it.

4.

In other words, although the details of the Election Committee for the first Legislative Council are left unclear, the Chinese side would clearly expect that those details and the details of the 1995 converging Election Committee would follow the composition and ratio of the Election Committee set out in the Basic Law, Annex 1 paragraph 2. This is in my view why they are accusing HMG of bad faith; but the problem, of course, goes back to the misunderstanding due to the ambiguity of the Chinese message of 6/8 February 1990 from Qian Qichen. Unless, however, the Chinese are going to make this rather legalistic argument, the "package" argument put forward in FCO Telno 936 of 21 October is an attractive one; although, I suppose it could encourage the Chinese to say that the UK has deliberately departed from the understanding on the composition of the Election Committee put forward by them on 6/8 February 1990 because we take the view that the Chinese departed from the five principles in drawing up the Basic Law.

Shelagh Brooks.

Shelagh Brooks

2

Page 150Page 151