Legal system of Hong Kong

The law of Hong Kong is based on the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. The constitutional framework is provided by the Hong Kong Basic Law, which is a national law of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

Under the principle of ‘one country, two systems’, Hong Kong has its own legal system, distinct from the Law of the People's Republic of China, and based on the combination of English common law (developed in local cases) and local legislation codified in the Laws of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a common law system, whereas the PRC has a civil law system with socialist roots. Only a small number of PRC laws apply in Hong Kong by virtue of stipulations in Article 18 and Annex III of the Basic Law. The separation of the Hong Kong legal system from the PRC is guaranteed constitutionally until at least 2047.

The Hong Kong judiciary has had a longstanding reputation for fairness and was recently rated as the best judicial system in Asia by one survey.

The Hong Kong Basic Law contains the essentials of the constitutional framework in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Article 8 stipulates that all laws in force before 1997, including

"the common law, rules of equity, ordinances, subordinate legislation and customary law shall be maintained, except for any that contravene this Law, and subject to any amendment by the legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region."

Article 18 states, further, that national laws, from the People's Republic of China do not apply, except for a specific list in Annex III to the Basic Law, to which the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress can add or delete what it chooses. However, this may only be in the fields of "defence and foreign affairs as well as other matters outside the limits of the autonomy of the Region as specified by this Law." It also has a derogation, in a war situation, for a state of emergency to be declared.

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