China rules on Hong Kong leader
Associated Press in Hong Kong
Thursday April 28, 2005
The Guardian
China
ruled that Hong Kong’s next leader should serve two years instead of
five yesterday, a decision pro-democracy groups said eroded the
territory’s legal system.
Legislators
and legal experts had wanted Hong Kong’s courts to settle the
controversy in the former British colony, which returned to China in
1997.
But
the ruling was made in Beijing by China’s most powerful legislative
panel, the Chinese National People’s Congress standing committee. The
group has the power to resolve constitutional disputes in Hong Kong,
which is supposed to enjoy wide autonomy under a "one country, two
systems" formula.
Critics think Beijing
favoured the shorter term because it wants the new leader to be on
political probation and pass a loyalty test before serving a full term.
Officials have repeatedly denied this.
The
opposition lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung protested against the decision,
stuffing a copy of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution into a black box in
the legislature. "I think this insults everyone in Hong Kong," he said.
The
term-limit debate began last month when Hong Kong’s unpopular leader,
Tung Chee-hwa, resigned two years early, complaining of failing health.
An 800-member committee dominated by pro-Beijing figures picked him,
and will choose his replacement on July 10.
Pro-democracy
lawmakers had argued that the law said Mr Tung’s successor should serve
a fresh five-year term. But a Chinese legislative official, Li Fei,
said the committee only had a mandate to choose someone to serve until
the end of Mr Tung’s term.
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Beijing cuts Hong Kong chief’s term
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By Keith Bradsher The New York Times THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2005 |
HONG KONG
The authorities in Beijing ordered Wednesday that the next chief
executive of Hong Kong serve only the remainder of the term of the
previous chief executive, a ruling that critics of mainland policies
toward the territory described as a further erosion of Hong Kong’s
autonomy.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s
Communist Party-controlled Legislature, issued a legally binding
interpretation of Hong Kong’s Basic Law, its mini-constitution. The
interpretation will limit the chief executive to be selected this
summer to the two years remaining in the second term of Tung Chee-hwa,
who resigned on March 12.
Stephen Lam, the secretary for constitutional affairs, told the
Legislature this past spring that if Tung stepped down early, the Basic
Law clearly called for the next chief executive to be elected for a
full, five-year term. The Hong Kong Bar Association and other legal
groups had reached similar conclusions because the Basic Law made no
mention of chief executives’ serving partial terms.
But when Tung stepped down, citing stress but also after being publicly
criticized by the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, two mainland legal
experts stepped forward to say that they recalled discussing partial
terms during the drafting of the Basic Law in the late 1980s. Chinese
legal practice calls for consideration of the legislative intent of the
drafters of laws, and the Hong Kong government ended up asking Beijing
for an interpretive ruling.
Tung became chief executive with the handover of Hong Kong to Chinese
rule in 1997. Donald Tsang, the chief secretary, became acting chief
executive when Tung resigned and is the favorite to be selected for the
two-year term when the city’s 800-member Election Committee convenes on
July 10 to choose a successor. Limiting the next term to two years will
give Beijing’s leaders more influence over Tsang, who was knighted for
three decades of loyal service to the British and is distrusted by some
pro-Beijing politicians.
Lee Wing-tat, chairman of the opposition Democratic Party and the only
candidate to step forward so far to challenge Tsang in the selection
process, criticized Beijing’s interpretation on Wednesday of the Basic
Law.
A legal challenge is pending in a Hong Kong court to determine how long
the next chief executive should serve, and the government should have
let that challenge work its way through the court before asking Beijing
to step in, Lee said in a telephone interview after the decision was
issued.
"The Hong Kong government has taken a back-door way to ask the Standing
Committee of the National People’s Congress; it has damaged the rule of
law in Hong Kong," he said. Lee said that democracy activists would
hold another march July 1 to demand faster progress toward democracy
and to denounce Beijing’s decision to interpret the Basic Law.
July 1 is the anniversary of the return to Chinese rule and was the
date of rallies drawing several hundred thousand people two years ago
to successfully oppose a proposal for stringent internal-security laws,
and a year ago to demand a faster pace toward democracy. But the march
this year is expected to draw many fewer people because the economy has
improved, deflation has ended, property values are rising and Tsang is
much more popular than Tung.
While opinion polls show that nearly 70 percent of the public approves
of Tsang, Lee pointed out that Tung had similar levels of popularity
when he took office nearly eight years ago. To remain popular, Tsang
needs to show that he can meet the democratic aspirations of Hong
Kong’s residents, Lee said.
The local government welcomed the ruling, saying in a statement that it
"removes the uncertainties affecting the normal operation of the
government and the community, and ensures that the new chief executive
will be elected smoothly and in time on July 10."
The interpretation is the third time that the Standing Committee has
interpreted the Basic Law. It first did so several years ago, when it
reversed a decision by Hong Kong’s highest court that would have
granted residency to many mainlanders with a Hong Kong parent. It
issued another interpretation a year ago, ruling that the next chief
executive and many members of the Legislature may not be elected by the
entire public in elections in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 