Social Security Policy In Hong Kong PDF Download

Chapter III of the Basic Law contains provisions that protect the fundamental rights of residents in Hong Kong. They include both civil-political rights and socio-economic rights. Since the inception of the Basic Law in 1997, our court was not short of opportunities to tackle difficult issues concerning civil and political rights, and it has been acclaimed by commentators as liberal in the protection of civil liberties in Hong Kong. In relation to socio-economic rights, the common conception that they were 'aspirational' and 'non-justiciable' rights had made them a modest ground of progression until recent years. The difficulty is increased by the strong judicial attitude that the court should not be used as a forum to discuss socio-economic policies. Many of the issues concerning socio-economic rights are more comfortably dealt with by the court when they are posed in terms of traditional civil political rights, e.g. the right to equality before the law under Art 25 of the Basic Law. Our court has in two recent cases adjudicated on the constitutional protection of social welfare rights in Hong Kong. Both cases concerned the new residence requirements for Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) scheme effective from 1 January 2004. The two cases demonstrated the court's approach in adjudicating cases that concern social and economic policies, particularly when the decisions affect the distribution of scarce public expenditure. The intensity of review was at issue and the court's view of the justification provided by the government accounts for the difference in results of the two cases. It can be clearly seen that the court is highly influenced by the political and economic implications of their decisions. The author argues that the court's internal restraints on adjudicating socio-economic rights are misplaced, and that there is room for a more principled approach to deal with social rights, especially in relation to the decision making process by the government, while respecting the freedom by the democratic government to determine its own policies.