Top Basic Law official to address legality of joint checkpoint plan in Beijing on Wednesday

Li Fei promises to answer all questions regarding the checkpoint planned for the West Kowloon terminus of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong rail link

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The West Kowloon terminus of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong rail link. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 4:00pm, 25 Dec 2017Updated: 6:59pm, 25 Dec 2017

A top Beijing expert on Hong Kong’s mini-constitution is set to field questions on Wednesday afternoon at the capital’s Great Hall of the People on the legal justification for a controversial plan to give mainland Chinese authorities jurisdiction over part of the terminus of a high-speed rail that will link the city to Guangzhou.

Basic Law Committee chairman Li Fei plans to hold a press conference on the same day China’s top legislative body is expected to approve the so-called co-location plan, which would allow mainland officers to enforce national laws during immigration and customs operations in a designated zone leased to them at the West Kowloon terminus of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong rail link.

Li Fei, chairman of the Basic Law Committee, is expected to hold a press conference on Wednesday regarding the so-called co-location plan. Photo: Sam Tsang

Questions remain over the scheme’s legal and constitutional justification, even as Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor penned a deal last month with Guangdong governor Ma Xingrui to set up a mainland port area at the terminus. Some Hongkongers, including opposition legislators, have said the plan would erode freedoms under the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution.

The plan was one of four bills being scrutinised by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) at its bi-monthly meeting that started on Friday in Beijing.

Let Hongkongers challenge joint checkpoint plan now before it’s too late, veteran lawyer argues

In a document tabled before the NPCSC by Zhang Xiaoming, Beijing’s top man on Hong Kong and Macau affairs, several parts of the Basic Law – including articles 118 and 119, which deal with economic considerations – were cited to prove that the Hong Kong government has sufficient power to implement the co-location arrangement, according to sources quoted by government radio station RTHK.