The head of the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong on Friday urged Hong Kong society to fully recognize and respect the nation’s Constitution, as only in this way can it solve new problems arising from implementing the “one country, two systems” principle.
Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, made the comment during an online seminar on the nation’s Constitution Day.
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He said the Constitution provides legislative backing for Hong Kong’s Basic Law. Correct enforcement of the Basic Law, which stipulates that the HKSAR implements the “one country, two systems” principle, requires recognizing the Constitution’s supreme legal status.
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Yet disputes have shown some Hong Kong people don’t understand the relationship between the Basic Law and the Constitution, Luo said, referring to reaction to the extradition bill since June 2019. He said this impeded implementation of the “one country, two systems” principle as the protests later morphed into monthslong street violence.
Luo added that only with a guarantee of both the Constitution and the SAR’s Basic Law can Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy be maintained, the rule of law upheld and its prosperity and stability ensured.
HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, also speaking during the seminar, said that although the HKSAR returned to the motherland 23 years ago, the community has yet to have sufficient understanding of the nation’s Constitution and the SAR’s Basic Law.
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People with ulterior motives have tried to deliberately distort the relationship between the central government and the SAR, and even regard “one country” and “two systems” as mutually exclusive, Lam said. Saying this lack of understanding is a key reason for Hong Kong’s polarization, she vowed to restore the SAR’s constitutional order and protect its political system from chaos.
The SAR’s former first secretary for justice Elsie Leung Oi-sie told a panel discussion during the seminar that for a long time, some Hong Kong people have ignored, or even rejected, the legal status of the Constitution in the SAR. Leung said promoting the Constitution is in line with the need to correctly implement the “one country, two systems” principle.
The guests also shared their opinions of HKSAR’s obligation to safeguard national security — another major theme of the seminar. With the implementation of the National Security Law, the SAR’s constitutional order has gradually been restored, Luo added.
Yet he emphasized that to further strengthen the SAR’s ability to safeguard national security, many provisions of the law should be transformed into systems and mechanisms that law enforcement and judicial organs can implement, and also codes of conduct that the general public can abide by.
