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Following is the speech by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Anson Chan, in moving the second reading of the Consular Relations Bill in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Madam President,

I move that the Consular Relations Bill be read the second time.

The Bill seeks to provide a more flexible framework under which privileges and immunities conferred on consular posts and persons connected with the posts are given the force of law in Hong Kong.

Under the common law system, international rights and obligations relating to consular privileges and immunities need to be implemented by domestic legislation, particularly those that affect private rights. At present, the principal Ordinance in Hong Kong giving effect to the privileges and immunities of consular posts and persons connected with the consular posts is the Consular Relations Ordinance.

The approach in the Ordinance for according privileges and immunities is specific and prescriptive. Section 2(1) of the Ordinance provides that those articles of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1963 which are reproduced in the First Schedule to the Ordinance shall have the force of law in Hong Kong. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is the international agreement which codifies consular relations and consular privileges and immunities. The provisions of the Convention set out in the First Schedule to the Ordinance are the consular privileges and immunities usually accorded to consular posts in Hong Kong.

Through bilateral agreement between sovereign states, a consular post may enjoy privileges and immunities in excess of those provided for under the Vienna Convention. At present, section 4(1) of the Ordinance provides that the Chief Executive in Council may accord additional privileges and immunities to a consular post in Hong Kong in accordance with the bilateral agreement between the People's Republic of China and that country. However, the current framework of the Ordinance only allows those privileges and immunities set out in the Second Schedule to the Ordinance to be accorded as enhancement. This has led to technical and drafting problems in a number of cases since some of the additional privileges and immunities that need to be granted to certain consular posts and to the persons connected with them do not correspond exactly to those set out in the Second Schedule.

The current Bill will provide a more flexible legal framework for giving consular privileges and immunities, in particular additional privileges and immunities, the force of law in Hong Kong by way of orders to be made by the Chief Executive in Council under the enabling provisions contained in the Bill. The Bill will repeal and replace the existing Consular Relations Ordinance. The opportunity is also taken to update certain provisions in the existing Ordinance.

The Bill rationalises and modernises our law on privileges and immunities for consular posts, and thus enables us to maintain a strong presence of foreign representation here in Hong Kong. I therefore commend the Bill to this Council for early passage into law.

End/Wednesday, December 8, 1999

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