The SCMP reports that…
Hong Kong’s legislature plans to amend its rules to require lawmakers to attend meetings, take part in votes and regularly submit work reports.
Legislative Council president Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen announced the proposal on Friday, with an aim to implement the changes in the legislature’s next term.
…The proposed requirements include attending meetings, taking part in votes, maintaining contact with different sectors of society and regularly submitting work reports.
…The performance of Hong Kong’s lawmakers has come under the spotlight after a report found at least two-thirds of bills were passed in the 2023 Legco year with under half of all councillors present, falling short of the 45-member quorum requirement.
The current 90-seat Legco, formed after an election in December 2021, is the first since Beijing overhauled Hong Kong’s political system to ensure that only “patriots” hold office.
Mainstream opposition parties sat out the election, with many of their leaders and former lawmakers arrested or behind bars for involvement in national security-related cases. Those still free said the patriots-only rule was meant to keep them out.
…Veteran lawmaker Priscilla Leung Mei-fun wrote on social media that she supported changing the code for legislators, noting that it would set out clear guidelines.
…“Besides following the law, lawmakers must strive for higher moral standards, actively participate in the discussions of policies, raise constructive ideas, be diligent in their work and love the people, as well as act as a bridge for residents and the government,” she said.
If two thirds of bills were passed without a quorum, how is the legislation enacted? (I guess there’s some sort of procedural let-out.)
The SCMP’s claim that opposition parties ‘sat out’ the 2021 election is presumably their idea of a joke. Not only were many formerly democratically elected lawmakers in jail, but the new ‘all-patriots’ system required all candidates to be vetted in order to weed pan-dems out, and only around a fifth of seats were elected by universal suffrage anyway. (Most voters ‘sat out’ the polls, hence a barely 30% turnout.)
Apart from some older pro-Beijing figures like the fragrant Priscilla, most of LegCo’s current members are unknown to most of the public. While making the chamber far less representative, the government for some reason also expanded the number of seats to from 60 to 90, so it’s not just people you’ve never heard of, but loads of people you’ve you’ve never heard of. (Salaries are HK$100,000 a month, plus over double that in expenses.)
With many/most lawmakers now pretty much hand-picked and not representing actual districts – and debates and votes inevitably reflecting the administration’s positions – few Hong Kong people nowadays pay much attention to LegCo. Hardly surprising if that includes the members themselves.
Just in from HKFP: four of the pan-dems have just been released from prison. Claudia Mo, Gary Fan, Jeremy Tam, and Kwok Ka-ki were all popularly elected, and will no doubt still be recognized by many passers-by when they walk down the street.
From the Guardian – posts on UK social media invite racists to attack Hong Kong activists in exile…
[Finn] Lau and his fellow activists have been called traitors, with bounties on their heads that are three times what the authorities offer for murderers. Relatives back home have been arrested and intimidated. As he read the posts, Lau suspected a chilling new tactic: an attempt to harness far-right violence.
Working with the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate, the Guardian found more than 150 posts from 29 accounts on three days in August 2024 that sought to draw the attention of anti-immigrant groups and the far right to Lau and other Hong Kong exiles. Cybersecurity experts who have reviewed the posts say they exhibited some similarities to a major online influence operation that a Chinese security agency is suspected of orchestrating.
“If two thirds of bills were passed without a quorum, how is the legislation enacted? (I guess there’s some sort of procedural let-out.)”
I looked into this as I had the same question.
If the legco president doesn’t notice a lack of quorum or a normal lawmaker doesn’t ask to check for a quorum (like the pan-democrats used to do to filibuster) then Legco business can proceed as normal and bills can be passed as if there were a quorum.
Which is of course ridiculous. None of these bills should be able to become law as a result.
These patriots are really such lazy sacks of shit, hence why pan-dems always used to call for quorum. It seems nothing has changed since the revamp except that the opposition is frozen out and the loyal garbage now exclusively control Legco and are lazier than ever.
Governance hasn’t improved, it has gotten worse as these pieces of shit aren’t being held accountable.
Re: quorum
As I remember, the quorum rules were only enacted when a legislator called for a count.
Back in the day this was considered an impingement on the proper duties of lawmakers, who often had to pull out of important business meetings, long lunches and liaisons with their mistresses to rush to Statue Square or Tamar to ensure the latest government bill got a timely rubber stamp.
Wonder who is going to enforce the new rule. A mystery, a bit like the question of why a lawmaker whose constituents are 1,200 election committee goons needs a full office and expenses.
Anyway, looking forward to the election to see whether Rowse and Alien Semen get conned into standing again (of course you’re going to get elected! We wouldn’t let you stand otherwise, wink).
“Hong Kong’s legislature plans to amend its rules to require lawmakers to attend meetings, take part in votes and regularly submit work reports.”
“…The proposed requirements include attending meetings, taking part in votes, maintaining contact with different sectors of society and regularly submitting work reports.”
I guess the concept of “DOGE” has reached Hong Kong?? Remember Elon’s emails to government employees requiring them to list what they did in a typical workday and what they’ve accomplished?
Looks like if you want to keep your fat little stipend, you’d better be MORE patriotic.
If these patriots can not turn up to do their jobs.
Fire them & claw back their salaries and expenses.
That they propose to amend the Legco rules is itself an implicit admission that many legislators are not…. attending meetings, voting on bills and submitting work reports.
Re the legality of the bills approved without the requisite quorum presence, they get away with this because all avenues to challenging the issues in court have been blocked.
If you cannot afford the legal fees there is no longer the option of legal aid, no matter the level of impact on the public interest involved.
If one does go ahead then pressure on family, friends, employer, landlord, menacing messages, etc will force a withdrawal.
The community recognizes that it no longer has any influence and the outcome is complete indifference to elections and zero interaction with Legco, district councils, community care groups and other organizations that are handsomely remunerated to provide fake representation.