following the provisions in Article 18: "The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress may make additions to or deletions from the list of laws in Annex III after consulting its Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the government of the Region." On the other hand, if the procedure prescribed in Article 158 is adopted, it will guarantee that any amendment made to the annexes must have gone through a rigorous procedure.
2. A member had reservations about the above-mentioned proposal. The National People's Congress meets only once a year. If an amendment to an annex has to follow the procedure prescribed in Article 158, then there will be too many restrictions and the practice will fail to meet the needs in a state of war or emergency.
3. A member held that the annexes had different contents. Annexes I and II are on the political structure whereas Annex III is on the application of national laws. There is no need to standardize the amendment procedure for all the annexes. Instead, the amendment procedure for each annex may be specified in the annex itself and determined in the light of the contents of that particular annex.
Appendices: On the proposal that a Committee for the Basic Law be established
1. A member held that the following proposal on the Committee for the Basic Law as in the Basic Law (Draft) was inadequate: "Twelve members, six from the mainland and six from Hong Kong, including persons from the legal profession, appointed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress." Since the Basic Law is an important legal instrument, it should be clearly specified that more than half of the members of the Committee for the Basic Law shall come from the legal profession.
* If there is any discrepancy between the Chinese and the English versions, the Chinese version shall prevail.
82
