The legislation implementing Article 23 of Basic Law will not undermine the human rights and freedoms that Hong Kong residents now enjoy, Secretary for Security Regina Ip says.

Mrs Ip was responding to the concerns of the US Consul-General in Hong Kong, James Keith. In a statement, he said that the Government should strive to ensure that the basic freedoms of individuals would not be infringed in enacting Article 23.

The bill states three times that the new law must comply with Article 3 of the Basic Law which protects Hong Kong people's human rights, Mrs Ip said.

The clauses on treason and sedition are more lenient when compared with the existing laws, she said, adding that only the actual use of force will result in a breach of subversion offences.

There are regulations or legislation on the Mainland allowing officials there to proscribe an organisation on national security grounds.

"The reference to 'by open decree' in our legislation is really to ensure transparency, so that we will only consider taking action if something is done with full transparency in accordance with the law in the Mainland rather than stealthily," she told reporters.

It is another way of ensuring transparency of application of legislation, she added.

Once a government has taken measures to proscribe an organisation, surely it is within the power of that government to set it out by open decree, she said.

"We are not prompting the Mainland to introduce additional legislation."

Mrs Ip stressed that the legislative process is highly transparent and it was only five years after the reunification that the Government began the consultation on implementing Article 23.