We refer to the letter from Secretary for Security Regina Ip (South China Morning Post, February 15), replying to our letter (Post, February 5) on right-of-abode seekers.
We still maintain that the reinterpretation of the Basic Law was abnormal and damaging. And we are not alone. More than 600 lawyers staged an unprecedented protest after the Government sought a reinterpretation in 1999. Objections were also raised by the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, the Catholic Church, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Mr Justice Bokhary, one of the five Court of Final Appeal (CFA) judges, suggested that the reinterpretation affected Hong Kong's judicial autonomy and he asked for an end to reinterpretations (Post, February 18). We are not lawyers, but basic common sense dictates that a ruling from the CFA, is, as its name suggests, final. If, when it loses, the Government feels it has the option to appeal to Beijing and effectively void the CFA's ruling, then the CFA is transformed into a court of semi-final appeal.
In her letter Mrs Ip urged abode seekers to 'adopt a more modern and realistic concept of family reunion'. She used this argument to justify the splitting up of families already reunited in Hong Kong. The job of a 'modern' and 'realistic' government is to guarantee the reunion rights of families. Families should be free to choose how they want to live. It is wrong for an administration to forcibly carry out a policy of family division and then say, 'Live with that, this is modernity.'
GIANNI CRIVELLER
FRANCO MELLA