ENG-1957 — Page 410

CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION

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members and eight unofficial members nominated by the Governor. These include four Chinese members and one Portuguese member.

The laws of the Colony are enacted by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council, which controls finance and expenditure through its Standing Finance Committee, on which all the unofficial members sit. Procedure in the Legislative Council is based on that of the House of Commons.

The membership of the Executive and Legislative Councils is given in Appendix XX. ____

JUDICIARY

The Common Law and Statutes of England as they existed in that country on 5th April, 1843, except where inapplicable to local circumstances, form the basis of the legal system of Hong Kong. They have been extended and modified by the application to the Colony of certain sub- sequent enactments and by Hong Kong Ordinances, of which a new edition, revised in 1950, was published in 1951. The courts of the Colony are described in Chapter 13.

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ADMINISTRATION

Under the general direction of the Colonial Secretary, the administrative functions of the Government are discharged by some thirty departments, all the officers of which are members of the Civil Service. A list of these departments is given in Appendix V.

The Colonial Secretariat, under the general administrative control of the Deputy Colonial Secretary, co-ordinates the work of departments, and makes, or transmits from the Governor or Colonial Secretary, all general policy decisions. The Secretariat consists of four divisions dealing with general administration, finance, defence and government personnel. The Financial Secretary is responsible for finan- cial and economic policy; the Defence Secretary advises on