My Take | The Basic Law gets no respect

You can’t pick and choose articles and principles you like in a constitution, mini or not, while denying others to suit your political agenda

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Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong has rebutted accusations it was interfering in the city’s affairs. Photo: AP

Published: 9:00pm, 20 Apr 2020Updated: 10:42pm, 20 Apr 2020

For many people, Article 22 of the Basic Law, the city’s so-called mini-constitution, is sacrosanct but Article 23 represents the devil himself. So, every hint of a breach of the former must be called out and fought with tooth and nail, while any attempt to legislate the latter must be resisted at all costs.

Such cherry-picking cannot be right. Yet this is what the latest row over the powers and limits of Beijing’s representative offices in Hong Kong is really about.

Article 22 says the central government and any of its political organs may not interfere in the domestic affairs of Hong Kong. Article 23 aims to legislate, so far unsuccessfully, a national security law to prohibit “treason, secession, sedition, [and] subversion” against the central government.

But surely, you can’t arbitrarily favour one article over another. As a foundational document, a constitution needs to be interpreted and followed, as a whole. This is to safeguard against those who deliberately cherry-pick articles and principles against other equally valid articles and principles in the Basic Law.

Unfortunately, both sides of the political divide have picked and fought for those articles in the Basic Law they favour and reject or ignore those they don’t like.

But, you say, I am just a hack, what do I know about constitutional law?

Well, I know nothing about such law. But every Hong Kong permanent resident, as a de facto citizen, should know about their constitution.