At her first Legislative Council (Legco) Question & Answer Session of this year yesterday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor for the first time brought up the issue of the SAR's new constitutional order in response to the opposition's questions about the legal foundation of the Colocation Arrangement.
It must be pointed out that what Mrs. Lam touches hers is not just the legal foundation of the Colocation Arrangement but the original source and core of all political antagonism since Hong Kong's return to the Motherland. In her own words: Although Hong Kong has returned to the Motherland for two decades, some people still don't understand or even don't accept this fact. They interpret the Hong Kong SAR's new constitutional order under the Basic Law only in their own way.
No doubt, Mrs. Lam as well as all the former CEs has in the past seldom brought up the issue of constitutional order. The saying and concept of constitutional order had never existed in the territory until Hong Kong's return to China. Citizens took in whatever the British Hong Kong governor and government said, with no one trying to ask on what constitutional foundation such policies and regulations were based let alone to find out the constitutional order for Hong Kong during that time. For everyone was aware that it was just "a borrowed place on borrowed time".
However, after Hong Kong's return to the Motherland in 1997, not only do Hong Kong people have their home country, but Hong Kong has its new constitutional foundation and order as well. First of all, "one country two systems" did not come out of thin air. What Deng Xiaoping put forward years ago was a political principle for solving a realistic problem left over by history, and this idea and principle needed to be endorsed in a legal form through the National People's Congress (NPC). Thus the establishment of the Hong Kong SAR is written into the Constitution of the People's Republic of China (PRC). This provides the constitutional foundation for the implementation of "one country two systems" and the Basic Law in Hong Kong after its return to China. Within this constitutional foundation, there surely must be some orders that must be respected and followed, such as the CE must be appointed by and responsible to the Central Government, the Central Government is responsible for defence of and foreign affairs relating to the Hong Kong SAR, and the power of interpretation of the Basic Law is vested in the NPC Standing Committee.
As a matter of fact, although some Hong Kong people may not be aware or be late to catch on, the existence of the new constitutional order provides the foundation for all political, economic and social development in the SAR in past 20 years after Hong Kong's return to the Motherland. Furthermore, the new constitutional order promotes the SAR's development and protects Hong Kong people's interests. Hong Kong people enjoy all democratic rights and freedom in accordance with the Basic Law and SAR laws. Even if the Central Government wants to make an interpretation or revision of the Basic Law, it must do so following the constitutional order. There is no such thing as "the NPC gets the final word". Right now, about the Colocation Arrangement and the National Anthem Law, the NPC has already said its "words", which however are not "final" for the SAR. Only through local legislations can they be put into practice. Such a strict, statutory constitutional order is the loftiest political treatment, in which lie Hong Kong people's fundamental well-being.
However, after Hong Kong's return to the Motherland, the opposition obstinately refuse to recognise and accept the new constitutional order, out of unawareness or incomprehension but more out of a resistance mentality. They distort all of the powers and responsibilities exercised by the Central Government following the constitutional order as "intervention". They look up to the "common law" left over by the old colonial government as the standard, in an attempt to reject and resist the new order. Carrie Lam's remarks yesterday could be said as "going straight to the heart of the matter".
Today, Hong Kong people are tired of political antagonism and long for the SAR's economy and society to advance, including implementing the Colocation Arrangement for the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link. Under such circumstances, to understand and observe the SAR's constitutional order, and to respect and safeguard the Central Government's jurisdiction now become even more important and necessary than ever before.
12 January 2018
