Page:Hong Kong Basic Law consultation report vol. 1.djvu/21



1. Following last year's first round of comprehensive consultations, the Drafting Committee for the Basic Law made many amendments to the Draft Basic Law for Solicitation of Opinions. Members of the public were relatively satisfied with the majority of the contents of Basic Law (Draft), the revised draft. This round of consultations therefore focused on certain key issues to resolve those issues which were still being debated and remained controversial, such as the political structure, the relationship between the Central Authorities and the HKSAR, and the policy provisions. Meanwhile, members of the public were welcome to put forward opinions and amendment proposals on other articles.

2. Since this round of consultations was on certain key issues, the collection of opinions was not divided, by topics, into stages. Instead, the special groups of the CCBL decided their own key issues for consultation and their own schedules. During this consultation period, the six special groups called a total of 23 meetings. The results of their discussions were processed and compiled by the Secretariat into the "Collections of Views of the Special Groups of the Consultative Committee for the Basic Law Regarding the Basic Law (Draft)" which was adopted by the special groups and then examined by the Executive Committee and subsequently forwarded to the Drafting Committee for reference.

3. Although the consultation exercise was once suspended as a result of the Beijing incident, after the CCBL had fully resumed consultation, the internal meetings of the special groups basically returned to normal. The work of the special groups on political structure and on the relationship between the Central Government and the HKSAR was affected to a greater extent because after the incident, some CCBL members and outside parties considered it necessary to review in detail the provisions on these two subjects, and more discussions were therefore conducted.

4. Apart from special group discussions, the Secretariat also organized a series of seminars or discussion sessions open to the public and invited experts to explore from different angles the following subjects of public concern: