Beijing to interpret Hong Kong’s Basic Law over oath-taking saga
In the fifth interpretation of the Basic Law since the handover, National People’s Congress Standing Committee will meet on Thursday to discuss its intervention, signalling anger over independence sentiment
The mainland’s top legislative body may intervene in the row over two localist lawmakers’ swearing-in oaths with an interpretation of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, sources have told the Post.
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee will meet tomorrow to discuss an interpretation of the Basic Law, signalling Beijing’s anger with Hongkongers pushing an independence agenda.
The committee’s deliberations will take place at around the same time the matter will be heard in the High Court in Hong Kong in a judicial review sought by the city’s government in an attempt to bar the two lawmakers from taking up their seats in the Legislative Council.
It will be Beijing’s fifth interpretation of the Basic Law since the 1997 handover. It is the first time it has pre-empted the city’s courts over a case for which an initial hearing has been held and full submissions yet to take place.
In 2005, the Standing Committee made a ruling over the number of years of the chief executive’s term after a Hong Kong lawmaker Albert Chan Wai-yip filed a judicial review into a planned legal amendment, but in that case no hearing was held.