Richard Cullen
China Daily
19 Dec 2019
If you want to comprehend the constitutional order in Hong Kong, almost everyone focuses their attention on the Basic Law. This approach is premised on the valid understanding that the Basic Law is the directly operative constitutional document of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. What, though, is the primary source of the constitutional standing of the Basic Law within the HKSAR?
Hong Kong’s Basic Law is a law of the National People’s Congress (NPC). It was passed in 1990 under the authority conferred on the NPC by Article 31 of the Chinese Constitution (allowing for the creation of special administrative regions within the People’s Republic of China). The Basic Law provides the elemental, regional legal foundations for governing the HKSAR within the PRC under the “one country, two systems” formula. At the most fundamental level, the Basic Law draws its lifeblood from the Chinese Constitution of 1982.
Some have argued that there is an important difference between what is described as a “liberal constitution” and a “socialist constitution”. The former is treated as the benchmark of what an authentic constitution is, where a supreme law stands apart from and above the state and its government. The latter, meanwhile, may be portrayed as an instrument of the state which is put in place to further the interests of the state, above all... Click here to read the full article.
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