The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

of Hong Kong (2003) 6 HKCFAR 570.

16 

See generally Wesley-Smith, Supra note 13, ch. 7; Ghai, Supra note 3, 305–6. There were, however, 

a few cases in which the Hong Kong courts were called upon to interpret the provisions of the 

Letters Patent: see Peter Wesley-Smith, ‘Constitutional Interpretation’, in Peter Wesley-Smith (ed.), 

Hong Kong’s Transition (Hong Kong: Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong, 1993) 51, 69–70. 

The leading case in this regard is Rediffusion (Hong Kong) v. Attorney-General of Hong Kong [1970] 

AC 1136. See also Peter Wesley-Smith, ‘Legal Limitations upon the Legislative Competence of 

the Hong Kong Legislature’ (1981) 11 Hong Kong Law Journal 3.

17 

See generally Albert H. Y. Chen, ‘The Provisional Legislative Council of the SAR’ (1997) 27 

Hong Kong Law Journal 1, 9–10; Albert H. Y. Chen, ‘Continuity and Change in the Legal Sys-

tem’ in L. C. H. Chow and Y. K. Fan (eds.), The Other Hong Kong Report 1998 (Hong Kong: 

Chinese University Press, 1999) 29, 30.

18 

See generally Albert H.Y.  Chen, ‘The Suppression of China’s Democracy Movement and 

Hong Kong’s Future’ (1989) 19 Hong Kong Law Journal 283; Albert H. Y. Chen, ‘The Basic Law, 

the Bill of Rights and the British Citizenship Scheme’ (1990) 20 Hong Kong Law Journal 145.

---

 

The Constitutional Orders of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ 

239

of Rights Ordinance,

19

 which incorporated into the domestic law of Hong 

Kong the provisions of the ICCPR which had already been applied by the 

United Kingdom to Hong Kong on the level of international law since 1976. 

The Ordinance expressly repealed all pre-existing legislation that was incon-

sistent with it.

20

 At the same time, the Letters Patent were amended to give 

the ICCPR supremacy over future ordinances enacted by the colonial legisla-

ture.

21

 As the Court of Appeal explained in 1994:

22

The Letters Patent entrench the Bill of Rights by prohibiting any legisla-

tive inroad into the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as 

applied to Hong Kong. The Bill is the embodiment of the covenant as applied 

here. Any legislative inroad into the Bill is therefore unconstitutional, and 

will be struck down by the courts as the guardians of the constitution.

The Bill of Rights and the corresponding amendment to the Letters Patent 

inaugurated the era in Hong Kong’s legal history of judicial review of legisla-

tion on the basis of constitutional guarantees of human rights. The case law 

developed by Hong Kong courts in this new era has been well documented.

23

 

It demonstrates that Hong Kong courts had already acquired considerable 

experience in judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation when the 

HKBL came into force in July 1997. They had introduced into Hong Kong 

constitutional law basic principles of such judicial review, such as the princi-

ple of proportionality and the need for government to justify a restriction of a 

guaranteed human right.

One of the earliest and most celebrated cases decided under the Hong 

Kong Bill of Rights in the 1990s was R v. Sin Yau-ming, decided by the Hong 

19 

Chapter 383, Laws of Hong Kong. See generally Raymond Wacks (ed.), Hong Kong’s Bill of 

Rights (Hong Kong: Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong, 1990); Johannes Chan and Yash 

Ghai (eds.), The Hong Kong Bill of Rights: A Comparative Approach (Singapore: Butterworths 

Asia, 1993); Raymond Wacks (ed.), Human Rights in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1992).

20 

Section 3 of the Ordinance.

21 

The amendment related to article VII of the Letters Patent. See Chan and Ghai, Supra note 

19, 539–40.

22