THE Governor of Hong Kong. Mr Chris Patten, and its future chief executive went head to head yesterday over proposals by a Beijing-backed panel to roll back laws on civil liberties after the colony's return to China.
While Mr Patten heaped scorn on the proposals to amend parts of the Bill of Rights, the post-colonial leader, Mr Tung Chee-hwa, said they were technical measures.
"The amendment to the Bill of Rights on this issue is legalistic, technical in nature and is not controversial," Mr Tung said.
Speaking at a dinner organised by a local newspaper to award him the title of "Leader of the Year", he said the amendments, which would affect laws relating to political parties and public demonstrations, among others, did not involve human rights but were a matter of weighing freedoms against responsibilities.
You need to find the right balance," he said.
Mr Tung, selected by a pro-Beijing panel in December, echoed the sentiments of China, which yesterday defended the proposed changes as "fair and reasonable" and fired a salvo at British protests against them.
Earlier, in a special address to Hong Kong's Legislative Council, Mr Patten flung past remarks praising Hong Kong's civil liberties back in the faces of those who now supported China's position.
He named half a dozen members and quoted them as extolling the Bill of Rights in debates that led to the chamber passing it unanimously in June 1991.
Most of those quoted responded by saying they were not seeking to undermine human rights, but merely to bring the Bill of Rights into line with the Basic Law, the post-1997 constitution for Hong Kong promulgated by Beijing.
"There is a difference between an about-turn and a revolving door," Mr Patten said. "People in Hong Kong are going to have to stand up for their existing way of life.
All those quoted were selected to the Provisional Legislature China intends to install in place of the elected legislature upon the handover on June 30th.
The interim chamber, expected to enact the proposed legal revisions, will meet on Saturday to select its chairman and set procedures. It will sit across the border in China, where it will be safe from a legal challenge from Hong Kong's democratic lobby, which argues it is unconstitutional.
Mr Patten said amending the laws would mean that the post-handover government would spend its first months in the courts sorting out the legality of the changes.
"The whole thing would create, in our judgment, a terrible legal muddle," he said.
China argues that some clauses in the human rights ordinances conflict with the Basic Law.