South China Morning Post: Draconian measures threaten HK freedoms

9/10/02
Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee

Secretary for Security Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee and her colleagues are trying hard to present the proposed Article 23 legislation as innocuous and something that will not affect the vast majority in Hong Kong. It is nothing of the sort. A careful reading of the consultation paper reveals numerous draconian measures and serious pitfalls. The fact that Mrs Ip has set a tight timetable to have the proposals passed into law by next July only serves to undermine the government's assurance of a real consultation, and enhance the impression that it does not want the pitfalls to be revealed before the law is a fait accompli.

It is hard to imagine anything more crucial to the preservation of Hong Kong's separate systems and way of life than the way Article 23 is handled. Everyone values the rights and freedoms people enjoy in Hong Kong, in particular a free press, the free flow of information, freedom of speech and of association, and free and open debate of political, religious or cultural views and ideas, no matter how distasteful they may be to the government.

It is universally appreciated that this should remain unchanged after reunification, and that the situation existing in the rest of China should not spread to the SAR. This is the essence of "one country, two systems".

The proposals in the consultation paper challenge this seriously, first by the creation of an offence of subversion. This makes it an offence punishable with life imprisonment "to intimidate the PRC government" or "to overthrow the PRC government or disestablish the basic system of the state as established by the constitution" by "levying war, use of force, threat of force of other serious unlawful means".

But what amounts to "intimidating" the central government? Would surrounding the Liaison Office in Hong Kong with Falun Gong followers [..] amount to intimidation? […] would thousands of students gathered in Statue Square on a hunger strike to demand the election of China's president, or the chief executive of the HKSAR by universal suffrage, commit the offence of subversion if, against police orders, they refused to disperse? Would anyone who supported the hunger strikes by making donations commit subversion?

[..] SAR residents will have to be extremely wary of going anywhere to join a pro-democracy rally which may be construed as aimed at "subverting" the central government. Equally, they will have to be wary of staging any rally in Hong Kong in support of such a movement.
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In effect, it is proposed that any body affiliated to an organisation that Beijing has decreed is endangering national security will be proscribed in Hong Kong as a matter of course. [..]

These proposals remove the separation between the mainland and the Hong Kong systems, and surrender to the central authorities a fundamentally important part of the autonomy provided under the Basic Law. As if this is not enough, it is proposed that a certificate from the central government verifying that an organisation is proscribed in the mainland will be regarded as conclusive evidence. Thus, a Hong Kong court is precluded from intervening.[..]

The Hong Kong courts must be left to determine whether an organisation has contravened Hong Kong legislation by applying the common law.
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Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee is a legislator representing the legal profession