CHIEF Justice Sir Ti Liang Yang said yesterday there were adequate safeguards to protect the independence of the territory's legal system after 1997.
Sir Ti Liang said the degree of autonomy to be maintained by the local courts and by the appeal structure was 'reasonable and practicable'.
He warned the community against becoming despondent about the future in the lead up to the handover but made no reference to the Bill of Rights.
His recent private comments to Zhang Junsheng, vice-director of Xinhua (the New China News Agency), allegedly that the bill undermined the legal system sparked controversy.
'Pessimism is our greatest enemy and we must overcome it,' Sir Ti Liang told the Hong Kong Business Summit.
'We must turn the historical challenge of 1997 into an opportunity. We must remind ourselves that we will be able to keep - and keep for a long time to come after the change of sovereignty - our way of life. We must not talk ourselves into despondence.' The changes would retain the strengths and structures of the common law system, which the territory shares with major Western countries.
