Elsie Leung, who sits on Beijing’s Basic Law Committee, says future government must take lessons from failure to implement Article 23 law in 2003
A former Hong Kong justice secretary said on Saturday that a highly controversial national security law should be enacted “step by step” after taking lessons from the failure to do so in 2003 after a massive street protest. The remarks by Basic Law Committee vice-chairwoman were made two weeks before chief executive-elect Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor takes office on July 1 – the 20th anniversary of the city’s handover. Leung said it was “very unsatisfactory” that Hong Kong had failed to fulfil its mission to enact a law against treason, sedition, secession and subversion under Article 23 of Hong Kong’s mini-constitution. The issue became highly sensitive after some 500,000 protesters took to the streets in 2003, fearing the law would endanger various freedoms. The government later withdrew the bill. As justice secretary at the time, Leung was heavily involved in lobbying for the legislation. She admitted that the scope of the law proposed by the government was “too broad in one go”, and a future leader should therefore take a step-by-step approach in promoting it.
