First, the joint declaration itself only talked about raw principles, because it was an international agreement. But the joint declaration itself says quite specifically that China's basic policy on Hong Kong, which was already set out in the joint declaration, will be further set out in the basic law for Hong Kong in which more details would in fact be given.
In articles 45 and 68 of the basic law it is said that for both the election of the chief executive, in article 45, and the election of the entire legislature, in article 68, the ultimate goal is to have universal suffrage. But article 39 prescribes that the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are to continue to apply to Hong Kong. That covenant, of course, sets out effectively that they will be elected democratically, and the basic law itself, as I said, in article 26 says that all Hong Kong permanent residents would have the right to elect and the right to stand for election.
Indeed, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has already ruled that the election has to be genuine and fair, so there must not be too much unnecessary restriction to the right to stand for election. But at the moment, what Beijing has said is that the candidates must love their country. That is a good thing, but how do you spell it out in a law? Who decides whether any one of the ladies or gentlemen here loves their country or loves it enough to be, in China, nominated to be chief executive. They will decide, “This guy is not a patriot.” That restriction is totally wrong.
When you look at the basic law and at the joint declaration and at the international covenant together, it has to be a meaningful election. Hong Kong people must be given a real choice. The nomination procedure is prescribed in the basic law, in article 45, to say that there will be a nomination committee that is broadly representative. Of course, the best and the broadest way to be representative is to have all the members of the nomination committee elected by “one person, one vote”, which is an indirect type of election, as in the election of a U.S. President. I don't mind that, but it cannot be right that Beijing could effectively control the constitution of such a nomination committee.
In its decision on August 31 last year, the Standing Committee of the NPC decided that the nomination committee would consist of 1,200 people, following the present election committee of the chief executive, and these 1,200 members would be elected in the same way as under the now-existing system for the election committee. That is, they would be elected not by “one person, one vote”, but by functional constituency types of elections.
This is very old. I was told that Mussolini had it, and Indonesia had it about 20 years ago, but Hong Kong is probably the only country that still has it. It's “one lawyer, one vote” and “one engineer, one vote” for some of those. When it comes to the commercial side, it's “one company, one vote”, so a rich man will have many votes because he has many companies.
This is totally unfair, and that is why I said in my opening remarks that if we go down this route, the nomination committee will be controlled by Beijing. At the moment, if you look at the present election committee of the chief executive, Beijing controls at least 950 out of 1,200. Beijing decided last year that anybody who wants to be a candidate in the election of the chief executive in 2017 must have the support of at least 50% of the 1,200 members of the nomination committee. They control 950, so how could we put up somebody with 600 votes?
So that is why; they want to control it.