No need for Beijing to intervene over Hong Kong’s oath saga, Basic Law Committee chairman says
Li Fei was quoted as saying that Hong Kong had the necessary legal framework to handle the row over oath-taking in the Legislative Council
A top Beijing official has said that there was no need for the national parliament to interpret Hong Kong’s Basic Law after the city’s government clashed with the legislature over whether to allow a pair of anti-China lawmakers to take a fresh oath of office.
The comments by Basic Law Committee chairman Li Fei, who was speaking to a visiting delegation from the city’s Bar Association in Beijing on Thursday, echoed those by Beijing-friendly political heavyweight Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai earlier in the day, and Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung on Wednesday.
Association chairwoman Winnie Tam Wan-chi quoted Li as saying that Hong Kong had the required legal framework to handle the row over oath-taking in the Legislative Council.
“We know that there was worry [about the Basic Law interpretation] in society. We wanted to know if there was any indication from him. After hearing what he said, we all think that he had never thought about that,” Tam said.
Li was also of the opinion that the judiciary system in Hong Kong was able to resolve the issue, Tam said.
Fan, a former Legislative Council president and a member of the National People’s Congress standing committee, also came to the government’s defence over its application for a judicial review of the Legco president’s decision to allow the two lawmakers to retake the oath. The move would not undermine the city’s separation of powers since such a system did not even exist under its mini-constitution, she said.