This webinar was hosted by Leuven Centre for Global Governance Study and the ‘EU-China Legal and Judicial Cooperation’ (EUPLANT). Delivered by Professor Lin Feng, City University Hong Kong, the webinar will discuss 'The Principle of "One Country, Two Systems" in Chinese Constitutional and its Operation in Hong Kong.
The principle of “one country, two systems” is a Chinese constitutional principle on which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been established and its constitutional document (the Basic Law) has been drafted and enacted. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been established for more than 23 years. One criticism we often hear is that China has not adhered to the principle of “one country, two systems” from time to time since it resumed its sovereignty over the former British colony in 1997.
This lecture will discuss the principle of “one country, two systems” and different interpretations of its meaning in both mainland Chinese legal system and Hong Kong’s common law system. It will use a few important constitutional cases/events as examples to discuss how the principle of “one country, two systems” has operated in Hong Kong and concludes by arguing that a guiding principle or constitutional convention should be developed and followed in order to ensure that no constitutional crisis will arise in the implementation of the principle of “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong.
Moderator: Marta Hermez (Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies and Institute for International Law, KU Leuven)
Lin Feng is Professor of Law, School of Law, City University of Hong Kong, and a practising barrister in Hong Kong. He is originally from mainland China. He is the holder of an LLB (Fudan University, China), LLM from the Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), and Ph.D (Peking University, China). He specializes in Hong Kong Basic Law, Chinese and comparative constitutional and administrative law. He has more than 100 publications in the relevant fields.