Liaison office legal chief tells Hong Kong: Basic Law is not your constitution
Wang Zhenmin says legal framework in city ‘must have the Chinese constitution as root and the Basic Law as supplement’
Beijing effectively sent Hong Kong a message on Saturday, reiterating its stance on the Chinese constitution and the part it plays in the city’s legal framework at a seminar on “one country, two systems”.
Speaking at the event, Wang Zhenmin, the legal chief of Beijing’s liaison office in the city, said it would be wrong to regard the Basic Law as Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.
The legal scholar from Beijing’s Tsinghua University, who said he was appearing in a “personal capacity”, also set the stage for legitimising joint checkpoints at the new high-speed rail line, despite the judicial reviews which were scheduled to be heard at the High Court in October.
In decisions issued by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NCSC), such as the one approving the checkpoints for the West Kowloon terminal of the cross-border high-speed rail link last year, Wang said “their binding power was unquestionable”.
Five pro-democracy activists have launched legal challenges against the Legislative Council’s decision to approve the so-called co-location bill, although the High Court has said it will not hear the case until a month after the line linking the city with the mainland is expected to have opened.
Wang’s comments came after he laid out his thoughts on the principle of one country, two systems. He said the Chinese constitution fully applies in the city, apart from in areas covered by the Basic Law.