The Chief Executive and the principal officials are appointed by the State Council of the People's Republic of China in accordance with the outcome of local processes.

[2] Under the "one country, two systems" constitutional principle, the Government is, in law, exclusively in charge of Hong Kong's internal affairs and specified external relations.

The Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), from which the Hong Kong government is financially independent, is responsible for Hong Kong SAR's defence and foreign policy, while decisions made by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress can, in certain circumstances, override territorial judicial processes.

Despite gradually evolving, the general governmental structure was inherited from British Hong Kong.

Then Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, began exercise of her unfettered residual powers of law-making by decree on 4 October 2019, under the Emergency Regulations Ordinance, Chapter 241 of the Laws of Hong Kong, bypassing the legislature.

The secretaries for each government affairs are appointed by the State Council of China on the nomination of the Chief Executive.

The Secretary for Justice (SJ) is responsible for legal matters of the government and prosecution for criminal cases in the territory.

The system was portrayed as the key to solve previous administrative problems, notably the co-operation of high-ranking civil servants with the Chief Executive.

The system is aimed at raising the accountability of the civil service, so the political appointees are responsible for all their job aspects and will step down if they make any failure.

As with the principal officials, these two new posts may be drawn from within or outside the civil service, and appointees may or may not have a political background.

By the administration's own admission, the announcements were poorly handled, and there was widespread criticism of several key aspects, namely the nationality and experience of appointees, the transparency of the recruitment process and the level of officials' salaries.