| SCA on views collected on constitutional development |
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Following is the transcript (English portion) of a stand-up briefing given by the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Stephen Lam, after attending the second constitutional development regional forum at Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education - Haking Wong Branch (in Cheung Sha Wan) tonight (July 19):
SCA: This is the fifth forum that we have organised on constitutional development. We have done so in respect of the central level across professional sectors, and this is the second occasion on which we are organising regional forums for such discussions. We shall continue to organise these regional forums in the next two weeks or so. We will have two more of these occasions before we move on to other focus group discussions. By the autumn, we hope to summarise the views that we are receiving in the form of a further report for a further round of public discussions. In the meantime, I have two observations. Firstly, in respect of the Chief Executive election, we have received quite a lot of views suggesting that we should increase the number of Election Committee members and that we should broaden the electoral base for returning these Election Committee members. The second observation is that in respect of the composition of the Legislative Council, there are views suggesting that we should maintain the membership at 60. There are relatively more views also that we should consider increasing the size of the Legislative Council. In the meantime, we have not yet reached the stage for making any further conclusions. We shall continue to listen carefully to the views of the community before we summarise the representative views we received by the autumn. (Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.) Ends/Monday, July 19, 2004 |