Whenever there is a sensitive issue in Hong Kong that remains unresolved, the pro-democracy camp cries wolf and issues the plea: 'Don't let the National People's Congress Standing Committee reinterpret the Basic Law again.'
This time, the issue is civil service pay cuts. When the Court of Appeal recently ruled that the salary reduction was unconstitutional, Democratic Party legislator Cheung Man-kwong immediately came out with this appeal.
Mr Cheung is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which aims to end communist rule on the mainland.
It is as if Mr Cheung was suggesting that the central government likes to meddle all the time in Hong Kong's internal conflicts and to reinterpret the Basic Law indiscriminately to suit its political needs.
This is not the case. The central government insists that it will never reinterpret the Basic Law, except under conditions prescribed by the law. However, when there is a need to do so, the NPC Standing Committee will not hesitate to discharge its duties.
Many barristers-turned-politicians in Hong Kong have stuck to the British tradition of the common law where there is no written constitution, and interpretation habitually rests in the hands of the courts. Even in the United States, Congress can, from time to time, set up committees in order to interpret specific clauses of the constitution.
According to Article 158 of the Basic Law, the Court of Final Appeal only has to defer to the NPC Standing Committee to issue a reinterpretation 'if the courts of the [special administrative] region, in adjudicating cases, need to interpret the provisions of this law concerning affairs which are the responsibility of the central government, or concerning the relationship between the central authorities and the [SAR]'. Otherwise, Hong Kong courts can 'interpret on their own, in adjudicating cases, the provisions of this law which are within the limits of the autonomy of the [SAR]'.