China has changed, and so should Hong Kong lawyers’ understanding of ‘one country, two systems’

Tian Feilong says there is a grievous mismatch between the reality of a rising China and growing cross-border integration, and Hong Kong legal elites’ arrogant belief that the common law system is superior to the nation’s legal system, and therefore immune to change

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Published: 11:00am, 7 Jan 2018Updated: 6:52pm, 7 Jan 2018

Hong Kong’s leading lawyers have failed to grasp the full meaning of the post-handover “new constitutional order”, and failed to show professional respect for the nation’s legal system. Illustration: Craig Stephens

At the end of last year, China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, endorsed a controversial plan to set up a joint immigration checkpoint in the heart of Hong Kong for its high-speed rail linking Guangzhou.

Response from the Hong Kong Bar Association was swift. In a strongly-worded statement, it said the Standing Committee had failed to provide any credible legal basis or constitutional legitimacy for its decision, which it called “the most retrograde step to date in the implementation of the Basic Law”. Hong Kong commentator Lam Hang-chi even said the decision would make Hong Kong a lawless city.

Clearly, some in Hong Kong are unaccustomed – even averse – to this new development of “one country, two systems”.

The quarrel over the legality of the decision pits the political elites in Beijing against the legal elites in Hong Kong. At its heart, the dispute comes down to a clash between the autonomy of the common law system in Hong Kong on the one hand, and the sovereignty of the central government on the other.