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Chapter 1 : Introduction
Annex 1
In order to gather the views of the community on issues of principle and legislative process in the Basic Law relating to constitutional development, the Constitutional Development Task Force (Task Force) has met a total of 86 organizations and individuals between 16 January and 3 April 2004, including political parties, Legislative Council Members, political groups,
academics, trade unions, societies and associations, business organizations, Basic Law Committee members, the legal profession, Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of District Councils, members of the 18 District Councils, Election Committee members, and a student association. Some of them have provided written submissions during, before or after the meetings. Except for
those submissions for which confidentiality is requested, the Task Force has received a total of 127 submissions. Amongst them, copies of 91 submissions were included in Annex 1 to the First Report; the remaining submissions are included in Annex 1 to this Report. Copies of these submissions in their entirety have also been forwarded to the
relevant departments of the Central Authorities.
2. Copies of these submissions have also been made available from 1 March 2004 at five Public Enquiry Service Centres of the Home Affairs Department for public inspection, and these collections are updated regularly. A set of the submissions has also been deposited with the Legislative Council Secretariat.
3. The list of the organizations and individuals met by the Task Force, together with dates of the meetings, are at Chapter 2 of Annex 1.
Annex 2
4. After meeting with the organizations and individuals, the Task Force summarized their views as they related to the 12 questions on issues of principle and legislative process in the form of a template. The Task Force then issued the completed template in draft form to the relevant organizations and individuals for their confirmation of the accuracy of the content
and their agreement to make the summary public.
5. As of now, the majority of organizations and individuals have confirmed the relevant summaries and given consent to make public the summaries. A total of 140 templates containing the summary of views on issues of principle are included in Annex 2 in chronological order of the date of meetings. Among them, a number of the templates have
yet to be confirmed by the relevant parties as at the date of print. In our follow-up with the relevant parties, we have made it clear to them that the Task Force aims to maintain a high degree of transparency in handling submissions from organizations and individuals whom the Task Force has met, and that if we did not receive their replies by the deadline, we would
assume that they had no objection to our publishing the summaries. However, to be fair, we would include in the record an annotation that the summary has not been confirmed by the relevant party. The relevant summaries are at Annex 2 and have been annotated accordingly. Those summaries of views relating to issues of legislative process have been included in Annex 2
to the First Report and its Addendum.
6. As there might be errors or omissions in the compilation and printing process, we would appreciate it if the parties concerned would inform us of any errors and omissions as soon as possible so that we could issue a corrigendum at a later stage.
7. The summaries of views are intended to record the gist of the views expressed. If members of the public are interested to know more about the positions of these organizations and individuals relating to issues of principle, they may wish to refer to the submissions of the relevant parties. The relevant submissions have been included in Annex 1 to the First Report
or Annex 1 to this Report.
8. We wish to take the opportunity to make it clear that the Task Force fully respects the views of the relevant organizations and individuals. The summaries will not replace the written submissions they handed in. As mentioned in paragraph 1, their submissions will be passed to the Central Authorities and made public in their entirety.
Annex 3
9. In addition to meetings with organizations and individuals, the Task Force has been receiving views on issues of principle and legislative process from the community through various channels, including electronic mail, fax hotline (2523 3207) and the Constitutional Development Website. Quite a number of the members of the public submitted their views by post to
the Constitutional Development Task Force Secretariat or through other Government departments.
10. As of 3 April, we have received some 660 submissions from the public. Amongst them, 241 submissions which solely or partly contain views on issues of legislative process have been published in Annex 3 to the First Report, and the other submissions have been included in Annex 3 to this Report. The submissions are arranged, where
possible, in chronological order of the date of submission. In addition, 19 public submissions for which confidentiality is requested have been handled accordingly.
11. Furthermore, we have received from 15 individuals letters and electronic mails addressed to the Task Force but the contents of which are, in our view, outside the scope of constitutional development. We have therefore not included them in the annex to this Report. A set of these submissions have been deposited with the Public Enquiry Services Centre of the Wan
Chai District Office at G/F, 2 O'Brien Road, Wan Chai, for public inspection.
Constitutional Development Website
12. We have posted on the Constitutional Development website 12 specific questions relating to issues of principles and legislative process. We have also provided, in respect of each question, a stand-alone e-mail reply facility. For statistical purposes, we have treated the e-mail replies to these questions from the same individual on the same date as one entry,
whilst e-mail replies from the same individual received on a different date will be treated as a different entry.
Suspected Virus-infected Electronic Mails
13. During the past two months or so, according to notifications issued to us by the Central Internet Gateway of the HKSAR Government, over 300 electronic mails addressed to the mailbox were suspected of being virus-infected. We were unable to process these mails further.
Handling of Personal Data
14. In order to safeguard privacy, we have removed senders' addresses when publishing their electronic mail in this Report. Other personal data, such as residential addresses, identity card numbers and telephone numbers, where provided, have also been removed. In addition, we have removed commercial advertisements printed in the electronic mail. The content are
otherwise published in their entirety.
15. Similarly, we have adopted this approach in handling submissions which came in by post or by fax. All personal data, including return addresses, fax numbers, identity card numbers have been removed.
16. Where the senders requested anonymity, we respect their wishes and have removed their names from the relevant submissions. We have encountered a small number of submissions in which the senders have not provided us with a valid return address or fax number. We are unable to ascertain the wishes of these persons as to whether they would want their identity to be
made known when their views are published. In these circumstances, we have removed their names from the relevant submissions.
Further Submissions
17. Annex 3 to this Report has included submissions received up to 3 April 2004 only. Further public submissions received by the Task Force after this date will be made public separately at a later stage for public inspection, and the same procedures mentioned above will be adopted.
18. If there is anything amiss or left out in compiling this Report, we will issue a corrigendum as and when necessary. We apologize for any inconvenience that might be caused.
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