Beijing has not unveiled the full text of its upcoming national security law for Hong Kong over fears it could lead to mass protests and violence in the semi-autonomous city, former justice chief Elsie Leung said on Thursday.

Leung, also a former deputy director of the Basic Law Committee, said she believed the law was likely to be passed by the end of the month. She told RTHK’s television talk-show “Legco Review” that it was unclear if the National People’s Congress Standing Committee would release the full text of the law’s 66 provisions before its passage, due to the highly-divided public opinion on the law.

“Because if the full text is released in Hong Kong, it may lead to public incidents. There may be extremely strong opposition. Beijing does not want to cause violent behaviour of this kind,” she said.

RTHK host and former Legislative Council president Tsang Yok-sing said that according to mainland China’s legislative procedure, the text of a proposed bill was only released for public consultation after it had been discussed by the NPC Standing Committee for the first time.

Beijing had earlier released details of the new law through the state-run Xinhua News Agency, which mentioned four types of crimes that will be covered by the new law, namely secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign or external forces.

According to Xinhua, Hong Kong’s chief executive will have the power to appoint judges to national security cases to be heard in the city. This is contrary to the existing process where the city’s independent judiciary assigns judges to cases.

Despite the absence of the full text, Leung argued that the NPC had already described the scope that the legislation would cover, and sufficiently consulted views from Hong Kong’s legal and social sectors, as well as delegates to the NPC and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

“[The NPC Standing Committee] has heard their views and therefore did not make the text public. A lot of discussions are already there for the committee’s reference,” she said.

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