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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Justice, Ms Elsie Leung in the Legislative Council today (Friday):

Madam President, I move that paragraph (c) of the resolution moved by the Secretary for Security under section 59A of the Immigration Ordinance be amended in the manner set out in the paper distributed to the Honourable Members in my name.

It is proposed to replace paragraph (c) to effect three technical amendments. These amendments to the wordings of the paragraph are proposed at the valuable suggestion of the members of the Subcommittee on the resolution under the Immigration Ordinance.

The first amendment is replacing "born of" by "born to" in the English version of the proposed new paragraph 2(c) of Schedule 1 to the Immigration Ordinance. The purpose is to achieve consistency with paragraph 2(e) of the Schedule.

The second amendment is to replace "person of Chinese nationality" with "children of Chinese nationality" in the Chinese version of the same paragraph. The purpose is to adopt the wordings in the Basic Law.

The third amendment is to qualify the time of birth with "whether (born) before or after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region". In its interpretation of Article 24(2)(3) of the Basic Law dated 26 June 1999, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress referred to the time element. Some members are of the view that this should be reflected in the resolution to avoid unnecessary doubts. We agree with them.

Madam President, none of the three amendments affects the substance of the resolution. However, the fact that some Honourable Members raised concerns on this important matter as regards the wordings makes the Administration believe that it is prudent to move the technical amendments. Thank you.

End/Friday, July 16, 1999

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