ENG-2003 — Page 56

THE LEGAL SYSTEM

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service immediately before July 1, 1997 were reappointed by the Chief Executive of the HKSAR. These reappointments were made in accordance with the recommendations of an independent commission -- the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission. All judicial proceedings that had been instituted before July 1, 1997 were continued by virtue of the Hong Kong Reunification Ordinance.

Law in the HKSAR

The laws in force in the HKSAR are:

(1) the Basic Law;

(2) national laws listed in Annex III to the Basic Law;

(3) the laws in force before July 1, 1997 that were adopted as laws of the HKSAR

by the Standing Committee of the NPC; and

(4) laws enacted by the legislature of the HKSAR.

National laws relating to defence and foreign affairs, as well as other matters outside the limits of the HKSAR's autonomy, may be applied locally by way of promulgation or legislation by the HKSAR. Currently, 11 national laws apply in the HKSAR.

All ordinances in force in the HKSAR are bilingual, and their Chinese and English texts are equally authentic. Those ordinances, and the subsidiary legislation made under them, are published in both a hard-copy loose-leaf edition and in electronic form freely available on the Internet. All new legislation is published in the Government Gazette.

The Law Drafting Division of the Department of Justice is responsible for drafting legislation in both official languages. From time to time, the division publishes an English-Chinese glossary of legal and relevant terms appearing in legislation and the third edition, containing about 30 000 entries, was published in September 1998. A Chinese-English Glossary of Legal Terms, containing around 11 500 terms, was published in December 1999. Both publications are available in electronic form via the Internet, and in hard copy format.

Court Challenges Under the Basic Law

Since the Basic Law came into effect on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong has, for the first time, a detailed written constitution. Litigants are able to base their arguments on provisions of the Basic Law, and challenge actions that they believe are inconsistent with them.

Legal challenges based on the Basic Law have been launched in a wide variety of cases. One significant group of cases focused on the right of abode in Hong Kong of various categories of persons, including Chinese citizens born in Hong Kong, Mainland-born children of Hong Kong permanent residents, children adopted in the Mainland by Hong Kong permanent residents and foreign nationals having ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years. Other constitutional challenges have included the conditions of employment of civil servants, the election of village representatives in the New Territories, the transfer of sentenced persons, the registration of social workers, the assessment of government rent, the abolition of the Provisional Urban Council and the Provisional Regional Council, the right to use the Chinese language in courts, the freedom to travel and enter the HKSAR, the determination by the Chief Executive of the minimum term of an indeterminate sentence, the offence of misconduct in public office and the