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Cliff Buddle

The soon-to-open Basic Law archive will be missing some material held back to comply with secrecy laws

An extensive body of material that could shed light on important parts of the Basic Law has been donated to a library soon to open in Hong Kong - but some documents have been held back on the mainland to ensure compliance with state secrets laws.

The library receives documents relating to the mini-constitution from different sources. For material on the Basic Law Drafting Committee, most comes from the private collection of prominent mainland legal expert Wu Jianfan.

Professor Wu is an Institute of Law research fellow under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He was previously a drafting committee member for the Basic Law and a Hong Kong government preparatory committee member.

He donated most of his collection to the Basic Law Library, due to open at City Hall on October 1.

Alan Hoo, SC,  chairman of the Basic Law Institute behind the project, said the material was openly donated and was passed on by the Beijing Liaison Office.

But he added that some documents appeared to have been withheld by Professor Wu.

'It is my perception that part of the collection has been withheld due to mainland regulations,' said Mr Hoo.

Alan Leong Kah-kit, SC, a member of the library's steering committee, said some documents had been held back. He added that it was not clear what material existed. It was therefore difficult to work out what was missing.

Mr Leong said he regarded the drafting documents as the most important part of the library and hoped problems arising from the mainland laws on state secrets could be overcome.

The library will feature the most comprehensive set of materials relating to the Basic Law ever made available to the public.

They include documents from the drafting committee and the consultative committee, and may provide new insight into controversial parts of the mini-constitution, including the right of abode, Article 23 and democratic development.

Public interest in such documents has risen recently due to the debate on political reform.

Mainland law experts have called on Hong Kong people to better understand the Basic Law. Next month, the National People's Congress Standing Committee will interpret certain parts of the Basic Law on democratic development.

Worries that some of the material might breach mainland secrecy laws led to the derailing of plans to display the collection in the Central Library in 2002.

The Constitutional Affairs Bureau was concerned because some documents were marked 'classified' or 'confidential'.

But Mr Hoo said the central government had been informed of developments. 'It has been supportive throughout,' he said.

'The classification sanctions are very different in the mainland to those in Hong Kong. In the collection of these materials we made it clear we would respect the integrity of both the law in the mainland and in Hong Kong. When the documents were sent down to us we were very careful to make sure the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office knew about the donation.'

A Constitutional Affairs Bureau spokesman said it was not in a position to determine whether any of the documents were classified.



Sensitive papers withheld from library