State Immunity

Hong Kong

Declaring in an explanatory note that the question of state immunity "directly impacts on a country's relations with foreign countries", the NPC Standing Committee adopted, by a unanimous vote, an interpretation of Articles 13 and 19 of the Hong Kong Basic Law in the fist case in which Hong Kong's top court sought such an interpretation from Beijing. The interpretation applied the absolute immunity doctrine to Hong Kong and underscores that "[s]ince state immunity falls in the domain of a country's foreign affairs, it is up to the central government to make decisions about the policy, which should be applied universally within the territory of the People's Republic of China," Later, Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal finalised its judgment in the case on the basis of the interpretation.