Finance Committee needs rule fix
The Legislative Council’s Finance Committee is scheduled to deliberate over and vote on proposed amendments to its meeting rules. The move follows passage of amendments to LegCo’s Rules of Procedure (RoP) just before the Christmas holidays. The RoP amendments were widely deemed as necessary and supported by most Hong Kong residents because the original versions allow opposition lawmakers to delay, if not block, passage of government bills by filibustering, often against public wishes.
The opposition parties are understandably frustrated after losing the “battle” to retain their ability to filibuster government bills at will under the original RoP. Now they will fight against the amendments to the rule book of the FC for the same reason, with the same prospect of failure. They not only blame the pro-establishment parties for their own inability to win majority public support but also try to mislead the public by misinterpreting Article 73 of the Basic Law, which specifies the role and functions of LegCo in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.
As far as maintaining their ability to filibuster government bills is concerned, opposition parties insist the Basic Law entrusts them with the power to do so, as if they can’t be constructive simply because they are the opposition. What they have avoided noting is that democracy is never about opposing for the sake of opposition, which is exactly what they have been doing with rampant filibustering of government funding bills in the FC. So much so the FC is widely seen as the LegCo functional committee most plagued by filibustering.
Some opposition lawmakers also cited major infrastructure development projects, such as the Hong Kong-ZhuhaiMacao Bridge and Guangzhou-ShenzhenHong Kong Express Rail Link, which have all reported budget overruns, to justify their objection to government funding requests for similar projects. And they always label such undertakings as “white elephants” because some people agree with whatever they say, but hardly ever acknowledge the fact that far more people support infrastructure development where it is needed. Neither have opposition lawmakers admitted their delaying tactics more often than not contributed to budget overruns of the projects concerned, or that budget overrun is a side-effect of a market economy, as opposed to public resources that can be controlled.
The opposition camp has gone so far as to repeatedly claim Hong Kong adopted “separation of powers” as a principle of democratic government, despite Hong Kong having been an executive-led government all along, before and after China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over the city. Besides, lawmakers must serve the interests of the whole Hong Kong society, not just those who voted for them or happen to agree with them. And checks and balances are not defined by indiscriminate opposition.