The Green Paper from a Constitutional Perspective

Abstract

Due to a treaty reservation to Article 25(b) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 1 the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government says that the right to universal suffrage is not a treaty right applicable to Hong Kong. 2 So we have to ask whether there is a legal right to universal suffrage, and if so where that right comes from. The 2007 Green Paper on Constitutional Development suggests some possible answers. 3 This document has an important constitutional dimension in its bearing on democratic rights in Hong Kong, quite apart from its object of constitutional reform. Its tone, language and content are riddled with implicit constitutional assumptions and theories. This short commentary argues, against a reading of the Green Paper, that (1) universal, equal suffrage is a constitutional entitlement with a “minimal content”, (2) that the Green Paper acknowledges this, and that aside from its acknowledgement in the Green Paper, (3) that constitutional right regulates both the content of the Green Paper and its consultation process.