The Fifth Report

The Fourth Report of the Constitutional Development Task Force
Regional Forum (Hong Kong Island)
(19 March 2005)

Discussion Summaries of Group 6
Group Facilitator: Mr Cheung Tat-leung

(Translation)

Method for Selecting the Chief Executive

The Number of Members of the Election Committee

• Participants considered that as the Chief Executive would be elected through universal suffrage in future, the number of Election Committee members should now be increased. The majority of participants supported an increase to 1600 as the first step towards universal suffrage.

The Composition of the Election Committee

• Participants agreed that the crux of issue was legitimacy. They also agreed that the principle of balanced participation should be maintained. Therefore, they suggested that the number of members for each subsector should be adjusted in accordance with the employment size of relevant sub-sectors.

• Participants proposed to increase representatives of the middle class and grassroots, such as area committees, chairpersons or members of owners' corporations, etc.

• The majority of participants agreed that all District Council members should be included in the next Election Committee because they had public mandate.

The Number of Members Required for Nominating Candidates

• Participants held different views. Many participants were inclined to maintain the requirement of 100 subscribers, while some proposed to increase the number to 150 or 200.

The Delineation and Size of the Electorate of the Election Committee

• Participants took the view that, if the Election Committee was to be expanded, the size of the electorate should be enlarged accordingly.

• Participants agreed to the abolition of corporate voting.

Others

• The majority of participants hoped that the Chief Executive was an independent without political affiliation.

Method for Forming the Legislative Council

The Number of Seats in the Legislative Council

• Many participants supported an increase in the number of seats of the Legislative Council. They considered that, in the light of social development, the changes in social structure could not be fully reflected if no new functional constituencies were to be introduced. In addition, in the light of population growth, seats returned by geographical constituencies should also be increased.

• Some participants, however, held a different view that having more Legislative Council seats was not necessarily a good thing. For example, there was a higher chance that meetings could not take place for lack of quorum; this would be a waste of public money. A participant took the view that if new functional constituencies were to be introduced, it would be difficult to remove them when universal suffrage was implemented.

The Number of Seats Returned by Geographical Constituencies

• Participants agreed that seats returned by geographical constituencies should be increased in proportion to population growth. A participant suggested that the issue of mobile population should also be taken into consideration.

The Delineation and Size of the Electorate of the Legislative Council Functional Constituencies

• Participants considered that if the seats returned by functional constituencies were to be increased, some existing functional constituencies which comprised two or three professional groups could be split. This could make the functional constituencies more representative of their respective sectors.

• Participants also proposed that new functional constituencies be introduced, e.g. middle class, Chinese medicine, women etc, because they were not covered by the existing functional constituencies.

Provisions regarding Nationality of the Legislative Council Members

• The majority of participants took the view that all Legislative Council Members should be of Chinese nationality.