The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

Fung-yuen v. The Director of Immigration [2001] 2 HKLRD 533.

93 

Benny Y. T. Tai, ‘Judicial Autonomy in Hong Kong’ (2010) 24 China Information 295.

94 

Article 43(2), Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR (1990).

95 

Article 45, Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR (1990).

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424 

Han Zhai

Kong is deemed more ‘restrictive’ in terms of the Legislative Council and 

the Chief Executive.

96

 However, in regard to the impeachment conducted 

by the Legislative Council against the Chief Executive, even the motion of 

impeachment must be passed by a two-thirds majority of all members of the 

Legislative Council.

97

 In fact, the interplay between the Chief Executive and 

the legislature is a fundamental issue of Hong Kong’s political structure. On 

the one hand, the Chief Executive leading the civil service bureaucracy is 

accountable to the central government through the central appointment pro-

cess; on the other hand, the democratic process for locally electing legislators 

and political parties is becoming increasingly inflexible. The tension between 

these two formulates the ‘halfway house’ within Hong Kong’s political system, 

founded by the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR.

98

 In other words, the Basic 

Law establishes a government that is ‘answerable’ to the Legislative Council 

rather than accountable to it.

99

In practice, the problematic design of the Chief Executive’s accountabil-

ity could be accurately presented correlatively through the universal suffrage 

issue. Since Article 45 of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR reads that the 

candidates for Chief Executive should be nominated by a special committee, 

the way to achieve universal suffrage based on that article has been a central 

part of the subsequent Chief Executive’s political reform proposals after 1997. 

These reforms gained the most opposition from Hong Kong residents who 

want ‘one person, one vote’ and consider the elective committee to be the 

mechanism for central control. In 2004 and 2014, the Standing Committee of 

the NPC made an interpretation on the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR and 

one decision that substantially amended the universal suffrage proposed in the 

Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR.

100

96 

See Yin Yi fen, ‘The Restrictive and Cooperative Relationship between the Legislature and the 

Chief Executive in Hong Kong and Macau’ (2008) 49 Macau Studies 35. [邓奋益：“港澳地区 

立法会于行政长官的制约配合关系

”，《澳门研究》第49期，第35-39页。]

97 

Article 73(9), Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR (1990).

98 

Albert H. Y. Chen, ‘The Theory, Constitution and Practice of Autonomy: The Case of Hong 

Kong’ in Jorge Oliveira and Paulo Cardinal (eds.), One Country, Two Systems, Three Legal 

Orders: Perspectives of Evolution (Berlin, London: Springer, 2009) 764.

99 

Ian  Schott, ‘The Government and Statutory Bodies in Hong Kong: Centralisation and  

Autonomy’ (2006) Public Organization Review 185, 189.

100 

Secretariat of the Legislative Council, ‘A Brief Overview on the Interpretations Made by the 

Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress According to Article 158 of the Basic 

Law’ 3 

www.legco.gov.hk/yr11-12/chinese/sec/library/1112in29-c.pdf

. The 2014 ‘8·31’ Decision 

www.2017.gov.hk/filemanager/template/tc/doc/20140831a.pdf

.

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