One of the benefits of Hong Kong's political system is its slowness. The genius of the system is it allows the city to watch other countries' experiments and laws, seeing what works and taking the best parts to make the Big Lychee even better.

The explains why its taken only 10 years for the government to come up with a unique racial discrimination law. The government has never been in a rush on this issue because Hong Kong is reasonably homogenous - less than 10% of the population is of non-Chinese ethnicity. Of the minorities, there are two main groups: the expats who are in no need of protection, and the army of domestic helpers who the vast majority of the population don't give a fig about. The law is holy (in the Swiss cheese sense of the word), as the SCMP reports:

The Race Discrimination Bill, drawn up after more than a decade of debate, makes discrimination, harassment and vilification on the grounds of race unlawful in six areas. They include employment; education; provision of goods, facilities, services and premises; election and appointment to public bodies; pupillages and tenancy by, and instruction to, barristers; and membership of and access to clubs.

But it includes a wide range of exemptions covering such areas as the language of instruction in schools, preferential treatment for overseas staff for reasons other than race, and differential treatment on the basis of indigenous villager status, nationality and resident status.

It's a Claytons law: the one you have when you actually fancy a bit of discrimination, even if it's not polite to say so.

The most intriguing part is that relating to barristers: has discrimination been such a large issue for the Bar? It certainly isn't an issue at the bars of Wan Chai.

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Copyright Simon World