Bulletin Winter 1978

Professor Bin Cheng's Address Your Excellency the Chancellor, Mr. Vice-Chancellor, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a great honour for me to be asked to address this distinguished Congregation on behalf of the honorary graduates. This is a task which I approach with trepidation for at least two reasons. First, I am conscious of my own inadequacy. Secondly, I am sensible of the responsibility of having to speak also for my two fellow honorary graduates, whose contributions to this University, to Hong Kong and to many other communities in the world, as the Public Orator has pointed out with consummate charm and eloquence, are so numerous and manifest in terms of, among other things, exchange scholars and architectural landmarks, that one can truly say of both of them: Si "testimonium “ requiris circumspice (If you seek their Citation, look about you). Appreciation and Gratitude However, I am sure that I am expressing the sentiment not only of myself , but also that of my fellow honorary graduates, when I say that we are all extremely appreciative of, and grateful for, the high honour which The Chinese University of Hong Kong has done us in conferring upon us this afternoon the University's honorary degrees of Doctor of Laws. We are proud to be thus made members of this University, which, in a relatively short time, has, through dynamic and imaginative leadership, wonderful teamwork, and strong community and official support, built itself into a shining beacon of learning at a unique junction of Chinese and Western cultures and civilizations. Mr. Chancellor, on behalf of all of us who have just been granted this privilege, may I tender our warmest thanks to Your Excellency and to the University. Moving Occasion If, for a moment, I may strike a rather personal note, I would like to say that, although my own ties with Hong Kong may not be immediately apparent, they are nevertheless extremely strong, which make this occasion a particularly moving one for me. In the first place, my wife, who is here wit h me this afternoon, was born and grew up in Hong Kong. Furthermore, our fathers and grandfathers were all closely connected with Hong Kong. China's Past Efforts to Westernize Her Laws as Illustrated by the Careers of the Speaker's Father and Father-in-Law both Closely Connected with Hong Kong It was from these very shores that my father seventy-one years ago, after having sold his business here, set sail for England to study law, where nine years later, he became the first Chinese to obtain the LL.D. degree from the University of London. On his return, he was admitted to the Hong Kong Bar. But, out of a sense of duty, he went soon afterwards to Peking to serve in the Law Codification Commission and the international Commission on Extraterritorialit in China, before going subsequently to the Ministry of Justice in Nanking and the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague. My wife's father had even closer links with Hong Kong. He was among the first batch of engineers who graduated from your sister University, the University of Hong Kong, which later in 1931 conferred on him an honorary LL.D. But his connexion with the law was not merely honorific; for, among other things, as Convenor of the Chinese Civil Law Codification Commission, Foo Ping-sheung played no small role in the drafting of the Chinese Civil Code of 1929-1930. Your Excellency, I hope you will forgive this brief excursion into family history. But what happened in the case of my father and my father-in-law serves to illustrate the part played by law or the concept of law at a crucial moment in the history o f China's relations with the West. As one of the special interests of this University is the confluence of civilizations, and as furthermore it appears to be the tradition of this University that the response on behalf of the honorary graduates should touch on some theme of interest to the University, may I, with your permission, avail myself of this opportunity of saying a few words on the subject. Law as a Technique of Social Regulation There are many ways in which a society can be regulated: through witchcraft, religion, custom, law, morality and so on. Law involves a system of pre- established rules of conduct, through which the law- giver, be he the prince or the people, ensures the protection of individual and collective interests which he considers worthy of protection. Such rules are addressed in the generality of cases to all the subjects 15