Beijing calls for judicial reform in Hong Kong, declaring patriotism is ‘a legal requirement now’
- Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office deputy Zhang Xiaoming says ‘people who are anti-China and cause trouble in Hong Kong are out’
- Senior official tells high-powered conference that ‘patriotism’ must sit at heart of Hong Kong’s system, and Basic Law should be seen as ‘living’ document
Beijing has called for judicial reform in Hong Kong and made it clear that anti-China activism will no longer be allowed among legislators and officials by law, as a key step to ensuring the patriotism that must underpin the city’s political system.
“People who love the country and Hong Kong will govern Hong Kong, and people who are anti-China and cause trouble in Hong Kong are out,” Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, told the Basic Law 30th Anniversary Legal Summit on Tuesday.
“This is a political rule under ‘one country, two systems’, and has become a legal requirement now.”
The high-powered seminar in Hong Kong, with the theme “Back to Basics”, set Beijing’s bottom lines for the city, three decades after the promulgation of its mini-constitution and 23 years after its handover to Chinese sovereignty.
In the first such official input from Beijing about reforming the judiciary in a city that bristles over any perceived threat to judicial independence, Zhang cited the views of former Court of Final Appeal judge Henry Litton.
In September, Litton wrote an opinion piece in the Post saying Beijing had become mistrustful of Hong Kong’s judiciary because the courts had “put a slant on the Basic Law, by applying obscure norms and values from overseas which are totally unsuited to Hong Kong’s circumstances”.