On March 19, 2024, Hong Kong’s legislature passed new safety regulations, giving local authorities in the semi-autonomous city-state more authority to repress opposition.
The law, which falls under Article 23, has been in development for years, but activists who feared the impact it would have on citizens of Hong Kong, a special administrative region in China, were reluctant to sign it for a while.
The Conversation contacted Michael C. Davis, a law professor who has taught constitutional law and human rights in Hong Kong for more than 30 years, most recently at the University of Hong Kong, and is the creator of” Freedom Undone: The Rape on Liberal Values in Hong Kong. ) To clarify what the passage of Article 23, which will be signed into law on March 23, 2024, means for the future of Hong Kong.
What qualifications does Article 23 have?
Article 23 has a long narrative. The Hong Kong government is required to implement a local law governing national security by an article in the Basic Law of the country. Essentially, the Basic Law constitutes Hong Kong’s law.
Its adoption by the central government was a part of China’s commitments under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, a convention allowing the transfer of Hong Kong to China. After more than a century of American law, the country was transferred to Chinese rule in 1997, thirty years later.
Following the transfer of Hong Kong, the Basic Law established a mostly liberal democratic order. This included promises of the rule of law and fundamental rights as well as the promise of the greatest general democracy. It was officially adopted by China’s National People’s Congress in 1990.
Basic Law Article 23 requires the Hong Kong government to “on its own” implement selected national security laws relating to crime, secession, rebellion, subterfuge or theft of state secrets, and to manage international organizations.
In 2003, the Hong Kong government introduced an Article 23 costs. The proposed act received a lot of criticism because of concerns about the effects it would have on press and corporate freedoms, as well as expanded police powers.
In a collection of papers that highlighted the bill’s shortcomings in light of international human rights requirements, a group of seven renowned lawyers and two academics, including myself, challenged it. However, half a million protesters took to the streets of Hong Kong.
The bill was withdrawn in the face of such criticism and the subsequent departure of support from a leading pro-government party.
The government chose to let Content 23 sit for 20 years rather than propose a replacement costs that do address human rights concerns.
Therefore, in 2020, Beijing passed a national security law, giving Hong Kong government more authority. It slowed down the once-vigorous politics movement in Hong Kong by allowing opposition images to be arrested and repressed.
The pro-Beijing Hong Kong government decided now was the time to pass a more intense version of the bill with no remaining successful opposition and the danger of imprisonment for anyone who speaks out.
The Hong Kong government, with Beijing’s assistance, was able to start up a small discussion on the novel Article 23 congressional plan with little or no criticism expressed.
A “patriots only” political system that Beijing imposed in 2021, which has tightened Beijing’s hold on the Hong Kong government, helped to facilitate the operation, which has led to unanimous support for the bill.
What impact will it have on Hong Kong’s legal rights?
The innovative Article 23 policy may have a significant impact on civil liberties in combination with the 2020 Beijing-imposed national security law.
In Hong Kong, the national safety rules and a sedition law from the colonial era have already been used to detain and solitude dissenters. Many opposition images are imprisoned or have fled to banishment. And those who have remained have generally gone passive.
The draft bill expands on the national security laws in important areas: the stealing of state secrets, rebellion, damage and outside intervention in Hong Kong.
It basically embraces island China’s comprehensive national security regime, which has longer focused on suppressing internal opposition, targeting several areas of local civic life, impacting corporate, press and intellectual freedoms.
Article 23 includes the large description of” condition secrets” adopted by the continent, which may even include reporting or writing on social and economic development plans.
The proposed use of prison expands thanks to the legislation’s possible use of long sentences upon faith and longer keeping of suspects before trial.
Article 23 also intensifies investigation of “foreign influence” – making working with strangers difficult for Hong Kong citizens.
The draft regulations criticizes” so-called” nongovernmental organizations and speaks disparagingly of engagement carried out under the guise of fighting for or monitoring animal rights.
Working with or supporting international human rights companies is a risk due to all of this.
In other words, Hong Kong’s progressive constitutional order has been transformed into a national security purchase with poor or no fundamental freedom privileges in just two years.
What is the Article 23 environment in its entirety?
To understand this policy, one may love the Chinese Communist Party’s deep antagonism to liberal principles and institutions, such as the rule of law, civil liberties, independent judges, a free press and public accountability. Such liberal ideas are perceived as a threat to party rule.
Under current leader Xi Jinping, the party’s national security agenda has dramatically expanded due to this perspective.
Beijing has focused on economic growth in recent years, putting its legitimacy on the growth, betting that people will care more about their standard of living than political freedoms. But as growth declines, leaders ‘ concerns about security and dissent have grown, placing such security even above economic development.
This has resulted in the implementation of a comprehensive national security policy in Hong Kong.
A liberal Hong Kong on the country’s border became impossible for the Chinese Communist Party to ignore as Beijing pursued an agenda that casts liberal, democratic ideas as a threat.
Widespread protests in Hong Kong in 2019 both exacerbated this concern and provided an opportunity for Beijing to address the perceived threat under the pretense that protesters were initiating a” color revolution.”
These devoted officials were used in the crackdown because they had long nurtured the loyalist camp in Hong Kong.
What does the lack of protest mean for the pro-democracy movement right now?
It explains how Hong Kong’s mainland national security system has effectively silenced society, especially those with opposing viewpoints.
In the direct elections that were held for half of the legislative seats, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement had historically received a majority of the vote, with about 60 % of the vote.
The introduction of loyalists-only elections resulted in a significantly lower turnout.
This and emigration patterns typically indicate that the majority of Hong Kong residents do not support this new illiberal order.
Despite the fact that the majority of their pro-democrat leaders are either in jail or exile, they dare not speak out against the new national security system.
Michael C Davis, Professor of Law and International Affairs, O. P. Jindal Global University
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