【明報專訊】THE MAIDS' RESIDENCE CASE will be brought before the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), though its hearing has yet to be scheduled. The Department of Justice has suggested that the CFA should request the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (SCNPC) to clarify whether the statement it made in its 1999 Basic Law interpretation in respect of the Ng Ka-ling case that the view the SAR Preparatory Committee expressed in 1996 represented the Basic Law drafters' intention is part of its Basic Law interpretation. Judging from the way the SCNPC has looked at the CFA's right of abode decisions, neither foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) nor children neither of whose parents is a permanent Hong Kong resident ("neither is" children) will enjoy the right of abode in the SAR if the CFA does as the Department has suggested. There is hope that the right of abode problem (which has vexed Hong Kong for ten-odd years) will end, but the CFA would then as good as reverse its own decision in the Chong Fung-yuen case (2001). It is worthwhile to examine whether that would deal a blow to the judiciary's independence.