Reconciliation of the NPCSC Interpretation of the Basic Law with the Common Law in Hong Kong

Abstract

The power of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to interpret the Basic Law has been a matter of great controversies in Hong Kong. Given the asymmetrical power relationship between the sovereign and the special administrative region, it is argued that the exercise of sovereign power has to be subject to self-restraint if the common law system is to be preserved. Accepting the sovereign power of the NPCSC to interpret the Basic Law, this article argues that there is no discernible principle of interpretation in the five interpretations that the Standing Committee has made in the last two decades; and proposes, with an attempt to reconcile the sovereign power of interpretation and the preservation of the common law system, some guiding rules for the exercise of the interpretative power so that it can be exercised in a rational and principled manner consistently with the constitutional design of One Country, Two Systems.