IT Has been a bad week for the Government. First the Whitehead report exposed how ineptly it had handled the tear gas raid on the Vietnamese boat people detention centre. Then, the administration's much-vaunted measures to improve public access to official information were simultaneously savaged by both Beijing and the local pro-democracy camp.
This week looks set to be even worse: following our revelation that up to 125 local laws, including those relating to the last two budgets and the Governor's political reforms, could be open to challenge in the courts, due to a clerical slip-up in the Foreign Office.
The problem is that the Government jumped the gun in allowing John Swaine to replace the Governor as president of the Legislative Council before the necessary constitutional changes had been completed in London. This means that every law Legco has passed over the past 16 months could be open to challenge.
It also raises serious questions about when the Government first knew about the mistake and why nothing was done to correct it. Perhaps the administration never expected the blunder to be uncovered or thought the problem would resolve itself before anyone could find out.
From what we can establish the Government has known about the problem for some time but did little to prod London into fixing it. This is astonishing. An administration that places so much store on the rule of law cannot disregard it when it proves inconvenient. To do so, makes a mockery of any moral high ground it may claim.
This is the second time in three months that the Government has tried to cover up an embarrassment over the Letters Patent. It will be less easy for Chris Patten to dismiss this blunder as a ''storm in a teaspoon''. He can expect to be taken to task over why his administration failed to own up to the mistake. But as we have seen in recent weeks, this administration is none too good at admitting its errors.
