Law, autonomy and politics: The changing socio-political roles of law in postcolonial Hong Kong

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and explain the particular socio-political roles that law has been expected and perceived to play in postcolonial Hong Kong. I argue—through looking at the public sphere's responses to the 1999 Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) interpretation of the Basic Law (BL), which effectively overturned a supposedly final decision of the local Court of Final Appeal, and the 2005 NPCSC interpretation—that the independence of the judiciary and the integrity of common law have come to be viewed as symbolical to Hong Kong's autonomy under the “one country, two systems” principle. Although this role seems to have weakened in the 2005 debate, common law, with its Western origin and cultural values embedded, still plays a significant role of cultural identity marker in Hong Kong and its people's attempts to distinguish themselves from their counterparts in the mainland. I also argue that, in the context of the legitimacy crisis of the postcolonial government, law has taken on another role in relation to local politics, in that the court has increasingly been engaged to settle social and political issues and a law-dominated discourse has emerged to dominate the concerned public debates.