Updates
on the Hong Kong Basic Law
Danny Gittings’ Introduction to the Hong Kong Basic Law
was published by Hong Kong University Press in July 2013. This page contains updates
to the book. These are listed by reference to the relevant pages in the book.
For ease of reference, wherever possible a relevant footnote on the page is
cited.
(Note: “n” is used as an
abbreviation for “footnote”. For example, “10n2” refers
to footnote 2 on page 10)
Update to page 145n288
A challenge to the
Legislative Council President’s ruling of 22 May 2012, ending further
debate during the first filibuster attempt by radical pro-democracy lawmakers, was
rejected by the Court of Appeal in Leung Kwok Hung v President of the
Legislative Council [2013] 2 HKC 580. This was followed by a second ruling
by the Legislative Council President ending debate on a further filibuster
attempt by radical pro-democracy legislators. See Legislative Council President
Jasper Tsang, President’s ruling on allocation of time for the remaining
proceedings on the Appropriation Bill 2013 (16 May 2013) at
http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr12-13/english/pre_rul/pre0516-ref-e.pdf
Update to page 147n297
The reluctance of the
court’s to interfere in the internal workings of the legislature was
reiterated in Leung Kwok Hung v President of the Legislative Council [2013]
2 HKC 580, where the Court of Appeal added (at 588) that the courts “should,
‘so far as possible’, avoid interfering in the legislative process”.
Update to pages
202n366, 209n429, 243n143, 250n193, 254n18 and 265n21:
The
Court of Final Appeal decision on the right of abode for foreign domestic
helpers has now been reported in Hong Kong Cases.
It should be cited as Vallejos Evangeline Banao v Commissioner of
Registration [2013] 4 HKC 239.
Update
to pages 216-217
Ling (2013) describes the act of state doctrine as
“simple incapable of being used to turn an executive policy on foreign
affairs into a legal rule binding on the court” in an important new
article criticizing the Court of Final Appeal’s decision on this point in
Democratic Republic of Congo v FG Hemisphere (2011) 14 HKCFAR 95. See
further Bing Ling, “The
‘confused topic’ of act of state under the Hong Kong Basic
Law” (2013) 1:1 The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law 84-111.