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SCMP Reporter

IT remains uncertain how Hong Kong Chinese residents with foreign passports will acquire the right of abode in the territory after 1997, legislators were told yesterday.

  Between 300,000 and 400,000 Hong Kong residents who enjoy the right of abode will lose this right after 1997 because they have a second passport, Principal Assistant Secretary for Security Simon Vickers said.

  Another 10,000 to 20,000 non-Chinese who have the right of abode in Hong Kong through their British Dependent Territories Citizen status, but hold a second passport will be similarly affected, he told legislators of the Legco Nationality Sub-committee.

  Mr Vickers said China and Britain had still to work out a detailed mechanism in the Joint Liaison Group (JLG), allowing such people to acquire the right of abode.

  Because China does not recognise dual nationality, ethnic Chinese with a second passport will be regarded as non-Chinese by the future government of the Special Administrative Region (SAR).

  Article 24 stipulates that only Chinese citizens born in Hong Kong or who have ordinarily resided in Hong Kong for seven consecutive years can automatically enjoy right of abode in the SAR.

  The large group of people therefore have to re-acquire the right of abode again as foreigners.

  The mini-constitution states that the only way for a non-Chinese to obtain the right of abode in Hong Kong after 1997 is to satisfy three criteria mentioned.

  These are: to have entered Hong Kong with valid travel documents; have resided in Hong Kong continuously for seven years; and have taken Hong Kong as their place of permanent residence.

  Mr Vickers said China and Britain had still to reach agreement on how a person could be regarded as taking Hong Kong as their place of permanent residence.

  ''I admit there's uncertainty and the situation is not satisfactory,'' he said.

  Mr Vickers said the Government was seeking a simple and direct procedure.

  But legislators were worried whether the procedure would turn out to be simple.

  ''The Government always says it will be a simple declaration. I don't think it will be so simple,'' legislator Andrew Wong Wang-fat said.

  Mr Wong asked whether it was clear that ethnic Chinese with a second passport would lose the right of abode under the Basic Law.

  He suggested that once a person had acquired the right of abode through his racial origins, he should be entitled to the right regardless of whether he had obtained a second passport afterwards.

  Another United Democrat legislator James To Kun-sun said what members of the Chinese-appointed Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) had contradicted the Government's intention.

  ''I wonder if this is merely the wishful thinking of the Hong Kong Government to keep the procedure simple,'' he said.

  The PWC's law and order sub-group has recently proposed a point-scoring system for people who want to take Hong Kong as their place of permanent residence after 1997.

  Under the proposed system, an applicant's intention to take Hong Kong as his permanent residence would be assessed by a host of criteria.

  This included whether he owned property in Hong Kong, whether he had a stable job here, whether he could speak Cantonese and whether he had relatives who were already permanent residents.

  Mr Vickers replied that China and Britain were at the final stage of negotiations on the matter in the JLG.

  He said they had not yet received any official statement from the Chinese Government, which indicated a complicated procedure.

  ''We have not received any official statement from China that they have changed their position of keeping the arrangement simple,'' he said.

  He said foreigners who could not get the right of abode would still have the right to land in Hong Kong after 1997.



Uncertainty on rights of dual citizens in 1997