The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

R v. Chan Chak Fan [1994] 3 HKC 145 (CA), 153.

23 

Yash Ghai, ‘Sentinels of Liberty or Sheep in Woolf’s Clothing? Judicial Politics and the Hong 

Kong Bill of Rights’ (1997) 60 Modern Law Review 459; Johannes M. M. Chan, ‘Hong Kong’s 

Bill of Rights: Its Reception of and Contribution to International and Comparative Jurispru-

dence’ (1998)  47  International and Comparative Law Quarterly  306;  Andrew  Byrnes, ‘And 

Some Have Bills of Rights Thrust upon Them: The Experience of Hong Kong’s Bill of Rights’, 

in Philip Alston (ed.), Promoting Human Rights Through Bills of Rights: Comparative Perspec-

tives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), ch. 9.

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240 

Albert H. Y. Chen and P. Y. Lo

Kong Court of Appeal in 1991.

24

 The case concerned the constitutional valid-

ity of a presumption for the purpose of the law of evidence contained in the 

Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. The presumption was that if the accused was 

found in possession of 0.5 grams of dangerous drugs, it would be presumed that 

he possessed it for the purpose of trafficking unless he could prove otherwise. 

The Court of Appeal applied the three-stage proportionality test developed 

by the Canadian Supreme Court in R v. Oakes,

25

 which included elements 

of justification and deference as respect, yet with a bias towards human rights 

protection, and struck down the presumption as contrary to the presumption 

of innocence in the Hong Kong Bill of Rights.

26

8.3.2.  Constitutional Judicial Review in the HKSAR

Upon the establishment of the HKSAR in 1997, the colonial constitution 

embodied in the Letters Patent lost its force. As mentioned above, art. 8 of the 

HKBL provides for the continued validity of the laws previously in force in 

Hong Kong, except for any law that contravenes the HKBL and subject to any 

amendment by the SAR legislature. Under art. 160 of the HKBL, the NPCSC 

may declare which of Hong Kong’s pre-existing laws contravene the HKBL 

and cannot therefore survive the 1997 transition. Such a declaration was 

made by the NPCSC on 23 February 1997 in its Decision on the Treatment 

of the Laws Previously in Force in Hong Kong.

27

 The Decision declared the 

non-adoption, inter alia, of three interpretative provisions in the Hong Kong 

Bill of Rights Ordinance, apparently on the ground that they purported to give 

the Ordinance a superior status overriding other Hong Kong laws, which was 

said to be inconsistent with the principle that only the HKBL is superior to 

other Hong Kong laws.

28

24 

[1992] 1 HKCLR 127.

25 

[1986] 1 SCR 103. The case is a leading case on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms 

incorporated into Canada’s constitution in 1982.

26 

However, a less rigorous proportionality analysis was used by the Judicial Committee of the 

Privy Council in Attorney General v. Lee Kwong-kut (1993) 3 HKPLR 72, a case on appeal 

from Hong Kong. See Lo, Supra note 1, 281–3. The Privy Council and the United Kingdom 

Supreme Court have since then made an about turn: see de Freitas v. Permanent Secretary of 

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Land and Housing [1999] 1 AC 69 (PC); and Gaughran v. 

Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland [2015] 2 WLR 1303 (UKSC).

27 

For an English translation of this Decision, see (1997) 27 Hong Kong Law Journal 419.

28 

The interpretative provisions concerned were sections 2(3), 3 and 4 of the Ordinance. For the 

effect of the non-adoption of these provisions, see Peter Wesley-Smith, ‘Maintenance of the 

Bill of Rights’ (1997) 27 Hong Kong Law Journal 15; Johannes Chan, ‘The Status of the Bill  

of Rights in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’ (1998)  28  Hong Kong Law  

Journal 152.

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