Unpacking Hong Kong’s laws, 25 years after handover: 5 rulings on Basic Law where Beijing, not the city’s courts, had final say in key cases
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As part of the group drafting Hong Kong’s Basic Law in the late 1980s, veteran pro-Beijing politician Tam Yiu-chung knew even then some provisions of the mini-constitution, when taken together, could trigger controversy after the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Article 2, for example, gave Hong Kong’s courts independent judicial power, including the final say on cases. However, Article 158 said China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, had ultimate power of interpretation over the Basic Law.
“This was based on China’s constitution, which empowered the standing committee to enact laws and interpret them,” Tam said.
“At that time, some people who didn’t know the Chinese constitution jumped up and said that if the committee had the final say over the Basic Law, the Hong Kong courts’ power of final adjudication was not genuine.”
Those critics were speechless when Chinese legal experts explained the country’s constitutional order to them, he recalled.
“We knew that some situations or controversies could emerge after the handover. But we could not shut out Beijing’s power under the ‘one country, two systems’ principle of governance,” he said.
In the 25 years since the 1997 handover, Beijing’s interpretations of the Basic Law have cemented its role as a crucial actor in determining Hong Kong’s legal, political and constitutional order.