Hong Kong boots pro-democracy legislators
Influenced by Beijing, court says four elected officials failed to take oath properly
HONG KONG— In a decisive blow to Hong Kong’s democracy movement, a local court removed four pro-democracy legislators Friday after Beijing intervened in the city’s independent legal system.
The ruling means the democracy advocates in the semi-autonomous city’s legislature will no longer have enough votes to block legislation from their pro-Beijing counterparts, assuring China greater influence over Hong Kong’s government at least until byelections are held.
“Voters entrusted us with the task of monitoring the government,” said Leung Kwok-hung, one of the lawmakers who was unseated. “We’ve lost that power.”
The lawmakers’ removal came after the Chinese government took the extraordinary step of blocking two separatist politicians from taking office as legislators, a move critics said was a breach of the high degree of autonomy Beijing promised the former British colony when it returned to Chinese rule 20 years ago.
“It’s a direct interference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs, a breach of both its judicial independence and separation of powers laid down by the British,” said Willy Lam, a political analyst and adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “This is a disturbing and ominous development.”
In November, Beijing intervened to bar the two elected independence advocates from office ostensibly because they inserted anti-China snubs into their oaths of office. It did so by issuing a legal interpretation of the city’s mini-constitution: that legislators who deliver an oath in an “insincere or undignified manner” must be barred from office and not be given a chance to do it again.
The Hong Kong government, relying on the new interpretation, then sought to remove four more legisla- tors from office. On Friday, the High Court declared their seats vacant, arguing they had failed to take the oath properly.
“It’s flagrant political suppression by the government,” said Nathan Law, 24, one of the lawmakers who was removed. “I had read the oath completely and the Legislative Council approved it. It only became an issue after Beijing’s interpretation.”
Law, a leader of the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests demanding freer local elections, had begun his oath saying he would “never serve a regime that murders its own people” and read the Cantonese word for “China” with an upward inflection, as if asking a question. He was the youngest person ever to win a legislative seat in an election that had a record voter turnout.
“By adopting a rising intonation, Mr. Law was objectively expressing a doubt on or disrespect of the status of the People’s Republic of China as Hong Kong’s legitimate sovereign country,” the judgment said.
The three other legislators who were unseated, Leung Kwok-hung, Lau Siu-lai and Edward Yiu, had delivered their oaths with various displays of defiance, including by reading it extremely slowly, inserting words calling for democracy and displaying props. Likewise, their oaths were declared invalid by the court, and they have been asked to pack up in two weeks.
Leung said they would appeal the ruling. By-elections will be held to fill their seats when the whole legal process concludes, usually months later.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the Legislative Council building on Friday to demonstrate their support for the ousted lawmakers.