But Teresa Cheng, making her first comments on the ongoing controversy, maintained that the plan was constitutionally sound
The city’s courts would be able to challenge the government’s proposal for mainland laws to apply in part of a station on the Hong Kong side of a cross-border rail link under construction, Hong Kong’s justice minister said on Sunday.
But Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah added that the proposed legislation – supported by China’s top legislative body – for mainland officials to oversee customs and immigrations procedures for travellers in both directions was constitutionally-sound, despite two professional legal bodies saying otherwise.
In her first comments on the ongoing controversy, Cheng, who was appointed to her post earlier this month, said: “After the [local] legislation is made, the court has the power to look into whether [the legislation] is contravening the Basic Law.”
The government is set to submit local legislation for a joint checkpoint at the West Kowloon terminus of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link to the Legislative Council by next month, as it is gunning for the rail link to start operations in the third quarter of this year.
But the city’s legal experts maintain that the plan, known as co-location, contravenes the Basic Law.
The city’s mini-constitution, they have highlighted, states that barring a few exceptions, mainland laws must not be applied in Hong Kong. The exceptions include laws that relate to defence, foreign affairs and “other matters outside the limits” of the autonomy given to the city.
