Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session before the Executive Council meeting this morning (June 4):
Reporter: Mrs Lam, how would you reflect Hong Kong people through vindicating June 4th to Beijing? Do you agree with the Chinese minister’s views that the massacre is actually justified? And second question on the extradition bill – according to clause 24 of the bill, do you think you yourself or the courts can still act as a safeguard to and reject the request whenever it is necessary?
Chief Executive: I try to repeat my answers to these two similar questions. First of all, Hong Kong is a very free society. We uphold and safeguard the rights and freedoms of individuals in Hong Kong. So today, if there are public gatherings to express their views and feelings on a particular historic incident, we fully respect those views.
About the extradition bill which is now under scrutiny in the Legislative Council, there has been this reference, and maybe worry or fear or even allegation that the Chief Executive will just follow the instructions given by the Central Government and surrender whatever fugitives that the Central Government wants. This is totally unfounded and deviates from the provisions in the law. There are very detailed provisions in the law that will not allow that sort of situation to happen. And on top of those, last week the Government announced six additional measures in response to public concerns in order to allay the fears and anxiety. Those additional measures are very much in line with the international rights for the protection of the individual, which we have heard over the past few months. We have imposed those additional safeguards as requirements to be met by the requesting party under a case-by-case extradition arrangement. If those requirements are not fulfilled, the Chief Executive will not trigger the process to deal with this particular request. If those requirements are fulfilled, the triggering of the process will have to go through the legal process and the courts will decide in the light of the evidence and the law whether a surrender order should be pursued, and then the case will come back to the Chief Executive for a decision. That is, I would say, a very robust process and I would really urge you to look into details of the process and all the legal provisions and safeguards in the existing legislation and also in the six measures that we have additionally provided.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
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