Mon, Dec 20, 1999 page1

• Smooth transition may presage trouble

  LAW The new Special Administrative Region has some serious constitutional and judicial inadequacies, and these shortcomings worry human rights observers

  • By Laurence Eyton / STAFF REPORTER
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  Portugal handed Macau back to China with rather less rancor than attended the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, yet part of the reason for the greater success was that Lisbon was far more in tune with Beijing's wishes than was London.

  Britain, in its last six years of colonial government, tried to introduce far-reaching political and constitutional changes that made Hong Kong far more democratic -- which were immediately canceled as one of the first acts of the new Special Administrative Region (SAR) government.

  Portugal, however, has bowed to Chinese wishes over Macau's governance for many years.

  

  Falun Gong members are dragged away by Macau police to be deported after practicing gongfuI in a public area in the city.

  PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, LIBERTY TIMES

  Pro-Beijing groups have dominated Macau's legislature for decades, after the colonial government agreed to purge the legislative council of pro-Taiwan members. The media, where it is not owned by the government, has also long been dominated by pro-Beijing interests.

  In this kind of environment, a smooth transition is hardly a surprise.

  But critics of the handover process have said that the warmer relationship between Portugal and China has resulted in structural weaknesses in both the Basic Law, the new constitution for Macau's SAR government, and in the enclave's new judiciary.

  The Basic Law has attracted the concern of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), which claims that some rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are not being met under the new mini-constitution.

  Particularly pertinent to Macau's current situation is the matter of capital punishment. This was forbidden under the old Portuguese administration, but the Basic Law says nothing about the matter.

  The UNHRC is concerned that China might reintroduce capital punishment as a way of clamping down on the triads, whose turf wars have damaged the enclave's all-important tourism industry. It is also concerned that the rights of defendants accused of organized crime membership might be insufficiently guaranteed.

  Such concerns find little sympathy in Macau. However, even the locals have expressed some concern at the youth and inexperience of the new judiciary.

  The 38-year-old Sam Hou-fai was named as post-handover chief justice in October by the new Chief Executive, Edmund Ho. Sam has served on the Macau bench for three years (by comparison, the judges of the Lisbon Supreme Court, the pre-handover highest judicial authority, usually have around 30 years' experience).

  Sam's inexperience is typical of the new system. Of the SAR's 22 judges, there are 17 who have had only a year's training in magistrates' college.

  This lack of experience is worrying to both lawyers and human rights groups in Macau. The inexperience is compounded, some lawyers say, by a lack of fluency in Portuguese, which remains the primary language of the judicial system. Many fear that a lack of appreciation for the nuances of legalistic Portuguese, combined with the judiciary's inexperience, will lead to a system in which political expediency counts for more than the letter of the law, and where judges without experience and stature in their profession will become willing political tools.

  Part of the reason for the lack of experience of the bench is an affirmative action-style quota system that mandates the filling of the vast majority of administrative positions by ethnic Chinese. Yet few Chinese have concerned themselves with the law in Macau, nor did the colonial administration encourage them to -- it only trans-lated the legal code into Chinese a decade ago.

  As a possible taste of things to come, Macau police detained some 30 Falun Gong members early yesterday morning, aiding Beijing in its vendetta against the cult. The group was performing the customary calisthenics associated with the sect in a park near the Lisboa Hotel. The police said their reason for the arrests was that the group was assembling without a permit.

  This came a day after Falun Gong members, who had entered the territory as tourists, were rounded up from their hotels in early morning raids and summarily deported.
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