THE shocking revelation in yesterday's Sunday Morning Post that the British and Hong Kong governments secretly amended the Letters Patent, the colony's constitution, last July to limit the number of directly-elected seats in the Legislative Council in 1995 to 20 has raised disturbing questions about the administration's integrity and credibility.
The act flies in the face of repeated assurances by senior officials, including the Governor, that Legco would have the final say on Legco elections in 1995. Being a colonial legislature, legislation passed by Legco can only take effect after it is signed by the Governor. After that, the Queen can still disallow it.
Thus, I have never had any illusions about Legco's legislative power. It was with these questions in mind that I asked Mr Patten during Governor's Question Time on February 24 whether the administration would block my amendment for an entirely directly elected 60-seat Legco.
The Governor flippantly responded that it was a hypothetical question and he wanted to see how many votes I managed to secure before he would give an answer.
It was quite apparent that he was caught off the hop and the secret amendment of the Letters Patent last summer had escaped him. It was unfortunate he did not use the opportunity to inform Legco that amendments to the Letters Patent had been made, and would come into force once gazetted.
The current constitution gives Hong Kong people no say over any amendments, but I expected the Government to have at least the decency to inform Legco and the public if and when amendments are made. After all, amending the constitution is a big deal and should not be done surreptitiously, either before or after 1997.
The post-1997 scenario is unsatisfactorily addressed in Article 159 of the Basic Law, which gives the power of amendment to the National People's Congress (NPC). However, it stipulates that proposals to amend the Basic Law can only be made with the consent of two-thirds of Hong Kong's deputies to the NPC, two-thirds of all Legco members and the Chief Executive. Hence Legco could look forward to a limited role in future.