Rail Terminus Tour Fails To Ease Pan-dems' Fears

Pro-democracy lawmakers say their concerns over the legality of handing over control of much of the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus to the mainland were not addressed during a tour of the future station on Tuesday.

Councillors were briefed on the station's layout and facilities, and what passengers will experience when they go through immigration controls.

But one of those who took part in the visit, Civic Party lawmaker Dennis Kwok, said afterwards that he was still not convinced that the so-called "co-location" plan is constitutional.

The opposition camp says allowing mainland officers to operate at the station will violate the Basic Law, which stipulates that national laws should not be implemented in the SAR, except for those relating to defence and foreign affairs.

“There are deep, troubling constitutional issues that we are still very much concerned with and there are other technical issues, for example, the transfer arrangement … from one jurisdiction to another ... how does that conform with Hong Kong laws? Those are technical issues that we don’t have time to ask and certainly haven’t heard answers to all of them”, Kwok said.

Roundtable lawmaker Michael Tien, who also toured the facility, said people don't need to worry about accidentally entering mainland territory while walking around the West Kowloon terminus, because that will simply not be possible.

“It’s very, very clear where the lines are. You basically cannot even get to the restricted mainland port area unless you have physically gone through immigration and exited Hong Kong”, he said.

Transport Secretary Frank Chan conceded that some of the lawmakers’ concerns had not been addressed during the site inspection, saying time constraints and the noisy environment had made it difficult for officials to answer questions.

But Chan said the authorities had a "good exchange" with the councillors, and he pledged to continue the discussions during future Legco meetings.