Abode leniency option 'still open'

Abode seekers who arrived before Beijing's reinterpretation of the Basic Law in 1999 should be allowed to stay in Hong Kong if the Government wants to be humane, an adviser to the National People's Congress Standing Committee said yesterday.

Professor Albert Chen Hung-yee, a member of the Basic Law Committee and Dean of the Law Faculty at the University of Hong Kong, said this option was still open to the Government. It would, according to estimates, allow thousands to remain in Hong Kong.

Professor Chen, who advised the Standing Committee on its controversial reinterpretation of the Basic Law on June 26, 1999, said he stood by comments he made in December that year suggesting a humane approach be taken.

On that occasion he said: 'If we want to be humane, to take into account humanitarian considerations, to register the fact that the law has been in a state of confusion until the Standing Committee rendered its interpretation . . . I think the fairest cut-off date should have been June 26, 1999. After this date, the law has been clear.'

The Government, in granting a concession to about 3,700 claimants who would otherwise have been denied the right to stay, adopted an earlier cut-off date - January 29, 1999, when the Court of Final Appeal ruled in favour of abode seekers. That ruling was effectively overturned by the reinterpretation.

Professor Chen said yesterday he believed the Government's cut off date was 'arbitrary'. A ruling by the Court of Final Appeal in January, which went against the majority of more than 5,000 applicants, did not appear to prevent the Director of Immigration from allowing those who arrived before the reinterpretation to stay.

'The court said the Director of Immigration could not exercise his discretion in such a way as to give everyone automatic permission to remain. The court said the Director had to consider each case on its merits, taking into account representations made to him.'