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Lack of public consultation on national security law causes fear, says International Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong

蘋果日報 2020/06/22 21:09


The Hong Kong chapter of a world business organization says Beijing’s decision to enact a national security law for the city without any public consultation has triggered fear and loss of confidence.
“The sudden proposal to enact the national security law on behalf of Hong Kong came as a shock,” the International Chamber of Commerce — Hong Kong said in a strongly worded statement on Monday.
“This is sad and devastates confidence in [China’s] Central Government,” it continued. “The international community would see a troubling erosion of Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and overseas talent will be unwilling to come and work in Hong Kong.”
Inaugurated in December 1998, the ICC-HK is the Hong Kong representative organization of the International Chamber of Commerce, which was the founding body of the International Court of Arbitration and also has observer status at the United Nations General Assembly.
The law is being drawn up by China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress. On Saturday, Beijing issued a statement explaining the draft, but did not reveal the actual text.
The ICC-HK said the situation gave rise to doubts about consistency with provisions in the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution. It added that there was a lot of uncertainty and concern surrounding Hong Kong's economy and individual freedoms and safety.
The body called for a public consultation on the draft law before being passed by the NPC. It said the law should clarify what constituted an offence and better define terms such as “interference,” “collusion” and “endangering.”
It also felt that since Article 23 of the Basic Law required the Hong Kong government to enact legislation on its own regarding national security, there was no need for national security authorities from mainland China to operate agencies in Hong Kong.
The ICC-HK said the Hong Kong administration was already well-experienced in working with law enforcement agencies in the mainland and other jurisdictions. “To suggest that Hong Kong cannot deal with selected serious cases of national security breaches is tantamount to negating the authority bestowed on the Hong Kong government by the Basic Law,” it said.
The statement said the law should be in line with the common law system with no retrospective effect, and there should not be a separate court for national security cases. It urged Beijing not to exclude judges from trials because of race, religion, conscience, nationality or sex.
Last year, the ICC-HK also issued a statement opposing the now-withdrawn extradition bill. Chamber chairman Lee Jark-pui is a non-executive director of Lippo Limited. When it celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2018, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam was the honorary guest.
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