Under Article 46 of the Constitution of France, organic laws (in French, lois organiques; in English sometimes translated as Institutional Acts[1]) are a short, fixed list of statutes (in 2005, there were about 30 of them) specified in the Constitution.
[4]: 91 The Basic Law was enacted under the Constitution of China when it was adopted by the National People's Congress on 4 April 1990 and came into effect on 1 July 1997 when Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to China.
It replaced Hong Kong's colonial constitution of the Letters Patent and the Royal Instructions.
[5] The Basic Law lays out the basic policies of China on Hong Kong until 2047, including the "one country, two systems" principle, the sources of law, the relationship between Hong Kong and the Central Government (State Council), the fundamental rights and duties of Hong Kong residents and the branches of local government.
The following texts are classified in the U.S. Code[6] as organic laws: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, and the US Constitution.