New Immigrations Situations -- Right of Abode Issue

The Lawsuits

According to the Sino-British Joint Declaration and Basic Law, there is newdefinition of permanent residency in Hong Kong after July 1st 1997. However,instead of verifying the persons' status and recognized their right of abode, on10 July 1997, the SAR Government passed the Immigration (No. 3) Ordinance todeport 1,500 children who have right of abode in Hong Kong and, most of whoseboth parents have resided in the territory back to China.

The new legislation adds restrictions for these children who are born inChina to obtain the so-called "Certificate of Entitlement" (COE) priorto entering Hong Kong. Such certificate would be attached in the One-way Permit(Footnotes #1) by which it is issued. However, the One- way Permit system iscommonly criticised as corruptive, unfair and inefficient.

This issue has been the subject of legal proceedings. According to theruling on May 20 1997, the Court of Appeal reinstated the legality of theImmigration (Amendment) Ordinance and said the "evil" of splittingfamilies had been "overstated". Most disturbing is that because of thedifferent interpretation of retrospective effect of the law, those who came toHong Kong before 1 July 1997 could stay while those after could not.

For those Chinese born children who were born before one of their parentsobtained permanent residency in Hong Kong, the Court of Appeal ruled that theywere not Hong Kong permanent resident according to the Basic Law.

The fight is still carrying on in the Court of Final Appeal.