Page:Hong Kong Basic Law consultation report vol. 1.djvu/82

 them, need to interpret those provisions of this Law which the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress reserves the final power to interpret, the Attorney General of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall have the right to make a request to the courts that the above- mentioned provisions should first be interpreted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

"The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress shall consult its Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region before giving an interpretation of the provisions of this Law."

Reasons: 1) In the proposed amendment. Paragraph 2 of the original article is deleted to avoid using the ambiguous expression: "the limits of the autonomy".

6. A member held that the amendment proposed above could be simplified, for instance by deleting the sentence "Judgments rendered by the courts of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region... shall not be affected." from Paragraph 2 and then adding the following provision at the end of the amended article: "Judgments previously rendered shall not be affected."

7. A member noted that there remained points of ambiguity in the amended article in Point 5.

It is first stated in the amended article that the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress shall have the final power to interpret the provisions relating to defence and foreign affairs, etc. And then it states that the judgments which have been rendered by the courts of the HKSAR according to those provisions before the Standing Committee makes an interpretation of the relevant provisions shall not be affected. That means if a judgment rendered by the court of the HKSAR is wrong, the interpretation made by the Standing Committee will not be able to rectify such a mistake. The correct interpretation made by the Standing Committee will only be followed by the courts of the HKSAR in