Seminars and Discussion Group

Regional Forum on Constitutional Development
(New Territories West)
(14 July 2004)

Group Discussion Summaries
Group 3: Mr Benedict Wong

(Translation)

Method for Selecting the Chief Executive

The Number of Members of the Election Committee

• Participants agreed that the number of members of the Election Committee should be increased. Specific proposals such as increasing the number to 1 200 or 1 600 were mentioned.
  
  

• A participant considered that it was unnecessary to have any hard and fast stipulation on the size of the Election Committee. The yardstick should be the representativeness and legitimacy of the Election Committee.

The Composition of the Election Committee

• Some participants suggested that the following new Election Committee subsectors should be considered: small and medium enterprises; Mainland enterprises, youth, women, the elderly, and the academia.
  
  

• Participants suggested that the Government should conduct a technical assessment as regards the definition for "youth" and "women" subsectors.
  
  

• A participant considered that members of Area Committees should be included in the Fourth Sector.
  
  

• A participant considered that the number of Election Committee members representing the industrial, commercial and financial services sub-sector should be increased.

The Number of Members Required for Nominating Candidates

• Participants agreed that the lower limit for the number of subscribers required for nomination should be 100, while the upper limit should be 200. The aim of this proposal was to increase the number of candidates.

Method for Forming the Legislative Council

The Number of Seats in the Legislative Council

• Some participants agreed that the number of seats should be increased by ten, five to be returned by geographical constituencies and five by functional constituencies. Some others took the view that the number of seats should remain unchanged to avoid the need for more resources.

The Number of Seats Returned by Geographical Constituencies

• A participant considered that in future the number of seats for each geographical constituency should be adjusted in the light of relative population ranges. A participant disagreed.

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

• Some participants suggested that the following new functional constituencies should be considered: youth, students, women, public works, small and medium enterprises, Mainland enterprises, and Chinese medicine. A participant considered that the representation of the middle class should be enhanced. Overall speaking, participants hoped that the representativeness and legitimacy of the functional constituencies could be enhanced.

Provisions regarding Nationality of Legislative Council Members

• Some participants opined that all Legislative Council Members should ultimately be Chinese nationals. Another participant considered that the current limit of allowing 20% of the total membership to be of non-Chinese nationality could be maintained.

Others

Universal Suffrage

• A participant suggested that in 2012, the number of seats in the Legislative Council returned by geographical constituencies should be increased and those by functional constituencies decreased, in order to reflect the principle of gradual and orderly progress towards universal suffrage.

Delineation of Geographical Constituencies

• A participant considered that there should only be three geographical constituencies (Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories). Another participant considered that the New Territories West geographical constituency should be further divided into two constituencies.