Following is the transcript of the media session at the airport by the SAR Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, upon his return from Beijing this afternoon:

Question: Mr Tung, how concern you about the hundreds of families to seek legal aid and using this methods to delay their deportation ?

CE: As I was saying in Chinese earlier on, this is obviously a very important issue for the whole community because on the one hand it is humanitarian consideration. And you and I , we are all very sympathetic of what is happening. On the other hand, it is a question for the community as a whole from the point of view of education, housing, medicine, social welfare. How can we look after them and anybody else. And these are some of the issues we have to resolve. And we must do it in what is in the long- term interests of the community as a whole. And I hope in the course of time, we will be able to find some ways forward on these. In the meantime, Hong Kong is a very free society. People can take the Government to court on all these issues. I hope they fail. The Government has obviously done a lot of study and took the position as the Government did after very careful consideration.

Question: Mr Tung, legal aid seems to be .... challenging the change of the Basic Law, are you ready to fight this in court?

CE: All these issues are being very carefully studied and obviously we uphold the law and this is the land of the rule of law.

Question: Regarding the suspension of the...Ordinance, do you think that the Government to repeal laws...and what is the opinion of the protest from the ... Democratic party ....?

CE: I think in so far as the demonstration is concerned, Hong Kong has this sort of culture. So people have the right to demonstrate as they wish in so far as the laws you are referring to. I think the real issue to ask ourselves is that in the last two three weeks of the past administration some forty-two laws were passed and many of them were private members' bills and many of them were without the proper consultation process. Let alone opportunity to really study the realities of these bills. And I think it is important that this Government should review all these issues and do what is right in the long- term interest of the community as a whole.