The Race Ordinance And Its Failure To Address Discrimination Faced By Mainland Chinese Immigrants
The Race Ordinance and Its Failure to Address Discrimination Faced by Mainland Chinese Immigrants
1.0 Introduction
The Basic Law and the BORO ensures equality before the law and protection from discrimination by public bodies respectively, however these constitutional protection have had rather limited practical impact.1 Individuals would often face tremendous difficulty in brining claims of racial discrimination against the government without assistance from the Equal Opportunities Commission.2 Therefore, after almost two decades of lobbying by various human rights organisations for a more comprehensive and specific anti racial discrimination law, the Legislative Council passed the Race Discrimination Ordinance3 (the Ordinance) in July 2008 and it is anticipated that it would come into effect in the first quarter of 2009.
Although many welcomed the enactment of the Ordinance as a big step in ensuring racial equality, it failed to cover some key areas, and in this paper, it will be shown that the Ordinance is inadequate to address discrimination faced by mainland Chinese immigrants (MCI).
2.0 Defining MCI
A mainland citizen in order to enjoy the right of adobe in the HKSAR, first would have to obtain a “One-way Permit” from the Public Security Bureau offices in the mainland; second, according to paragraph 2(b) of Schedule 1 to the Immigration Ordinance4, he would have to reside in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than seven years before or after the establishment of the HKSAR. And for the purpose of this paper, MCI would be defined as those who have become or are in the process of becoming a permanent citizen through the aforesaid manner.
Secondly, mainland spouse of HKSAR’s permanent citizen would very often for the sakes of family unity and child caring, live in Hong Kong for a period of three months every time by obtaining an “Exit-entry Permit for...
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