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SCMP Reporter

TWO liberal groups are set to take a more extreme line than Beijing by proposing foreign passport holders be banned from sitting on the Legislative Council after 1997.

  Meeting Point and the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood (ADPL) said they believed it was impossible to implement the Basic Law's restriction on foreign nationals, as they finalise their stance on Sino-British talks over political reform.

  ADPL chairman Mr Frederick Fung Kin-kee said allowing foreign nationals on the legislature would be compromising Chinese sovereignty over Hongkong.

  ADPL candidates are already required to relinquish any foreign citizenship once elected to the Legislative Council.

  Mr Fung called on China to amend the Basic Law in 1997 to bar all foreign passport holders from the legislature.

  Meeting Point chairman Mr Anthony Cheung Ping-leung agreed it would not violate the Basic Law for the SAR to pass a law to ban foreign passport holders as the mini-constitution only set out a maximum limit.

  He said for the nationality rule to be meaningful, it should be applied to the whole legislature.

  Both groups are opposed to restriction of foreign nationals to 20 per cent of the legislature, or 12 seats, set out in the Basic Law.

  The pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hongkong (DAB) had suggested lots be drawn to decide who should be given the quota in the 1995 legislature.

  The proposal was seen as a possible solution to the through train arrangement, a major sticking point in Sino-British talks last week.

  But Mr Cheung said the DAB plans were ''ludicrous'' as it was impossible to come up with any sensible scheme to implement the restriction.

 It is understood Meeting Point and ADPL are unlikely to come up with proposals to implement the restriction, as they finalise their constitutional blueprint this week.

  Meanwhile, the United Democrats of Hongkong (UDHK) kept up its attempt to court Beijing yesterday as chairman Mr Martin Lee Chu-ming said the party would continue to show its sincerity to have dialogue with China.

  Mr Lee's comment followed remarks by New China News Agency (NCNA) chief Mr Zhou Nan that he would have to watch the party's words and actions closely in deciding whether to begin talks with the party.

  The UDHK has been considered ''subversive'' by Beijing for its core members' overlapping role in the local pro-democracy movement, the Hongkong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China.

  ''What we say and what we do is always in the open when it comes to public issues,'' he said, adding the party had not been deliberately provocative.

  ''We have always taken great care not to be excessive in what we say and in our criticism of the Chinese Government.

   ''But we do believe that when it comes to issues of this kind somebody in Hongkong must speak up for our people.'' 



Liberals call for Legco ban