Amending LegCo rule book — battle to end all battles

The weakness of Hong Kong’s opposition parties is becoming increasingly obvious. I almost feel sorry for them in their battle against changing the Legislative Council rule book. Protests, disruptions, quorum counts, filibustering, any delaying tactics the opposition can come up with, are used to stall the legislature’s marathon debate on changes to its rule book to restrict such tactics from this month. There is no ugliest in their tactics but only more and more ugly.

The opposition parties are rather “creative” in the field. A few weeks ago, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick invoked the unprecedented Section 1 from Paragraph 88 of LegCo’s Rules of Procedure to force the press and public to be cleared from the chamber to stall the vote on a government bill.

As tensions grew between “pan-democrats” and the pro-establishment camp, the opposition parties set up several tents in the LegCo protest area before the second week’s debate, to show their determination on blocking amendments to the LegCo rule book. However, the claimed three-day protest ended within a few hours with a mere 50 people joining, even less than reporters according to a report. It is so obvious that the opposition camp is losing public support.

Before the ridiculous “Occupy LegCo” campaign, they protested inside the chamber instead of on the street during the first week’s debate. While pro-establishment lawmaker Paul Tse Wai-chun was explaining the reasons behind amending the rulebook, the “pandemocrats” shouted “Amend the rules of procedure today, tomorrow they will legislate under Article 23”, leaving their seats, standing in the middle of chamber and refusing to return.

The first day of meeting was suspended twice thanks to opposition parties, who always claimed Hong Kong people’s wellbeing is their crucial concern.

In recent years the opposition made full use of filibustering tactics, such as quorum counts and tabling stacks of amendments, to delay voting on motions and government bills in a bid to protect their own political benefits, dragging meetings out much longer than necessary.

The debate on the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2014 last year is a perfect example of opposition parties’ recklessness. The bill was not controversial. International players in the creative industry and Hong Kong copyright owners supported it as they believed it would protect them.

Ronny Tong Ka-wah, a former lawmaker, recalled the incident recently. He said after an internal discussion, he represented the opposition camp to negotiate with the government and reached an agreement on this issue. However, just before voting, netizens launched a campaign against the bill and called it “Network Article 23”. Opposition parties changed their position immediately under pressure.

It is LegCo’s responsibility to enact, amend and repeal laws in accordance with legal procedures and to examine and approve budgets introduced by the government. But that is not a mandate for lawmakers to indiscriminately filibuster in the legislative chamber.

There might be no way to reckon the exact cost of filibusters to society but common sense tells us the huge amount of LegCo meeting time wasted on frequent adjournment due to a lack of quorum has resulted in an immense amount of additional public expenditure.

Official statistics showed the government’s expenditure on capital works projects accounted for about one-third of overall expenditure for public and private works projects last year. Capital works projects have much to do with social well-being as more than 300,000 people, or one-tenth of the local labor force, work in the construction industry as ordinary workers, professionals and other related personnel.

However, during the 2017-18 legislative session, the LegCo Finance Committee approved just 29 funding requests involving HK$73 billion, only half the amount approved in the previous legislative session.

The responsibility of the Finance Committee is to deliberate proposals related to public works projects, which are closely related to Hong Kong people’s livelihood. The project items pending Finance Committee scrutiny include infrastructural facilities related to land and public housing development such as schools, hospitals, sports centers, community halls and roads, all needed by local communities.

One has no difficulty understating Finance Committee Chairman Chan Kin-por’s frustration when he recently complained that opposition legislators had frequently walked around and uttered unnecessarily long speeches during deliberations, significantly weakening the committee’s efficiency.

The move to amend LegCo’s rule book has been supported not only by the pro-establishment camp but also all sectors of society. It is imperative to have the rule book amended to restrict opposition filibustering antics.

Only by changing some existing rules will the efficiency of LegCo proceedings be improved and normalcy be restored in the legislature for the sake of Hong Kong’s overall interest.

The opposition is trying to delay deliberation on rule book amendment until after March, hoping to gain more seats in the legislature through next year’s LegCo by-election so as to have enough seats to block the amendment motion. The public and LegCo must not fall into their trap.

LegCo President Andrew Leung Kwanyuen has rightly decided that some extra sessions would be held to deliberate the rule book amendment. It is hoped all LegCo members from the pro-establishment camp will work together to achieve Leung’s goal of having the bill adopted before Christmas, which will be the best Christmas gift for Hong Kong people.