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Translation
DRAFT SPEECH BY HON ANDREW SO, OBE, JP LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 12.6.85
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Legislative Council (Powers and Privileges) Bill 1985
sir,
When the new
Before taking office, Members of this Council must
We pledge an oath of allegiance. An oath is a sacred promise. have to thoroughly understand our rights and obligations before
The aim of the Bill before we undertake to make the promise. us is to set out explicitly these basic rights. session begins, the Legislative Council will be very different from what it is now both in its composition and in the atmosphere of its meetings, though its role will remain unchanged. To give just one example, there will be a much greater number of select committees to be set up under the Council. At present, we only have the Finance Committee and the Public Accounts Committee, plus the recently-appointed
As the status of the Select Committee on commercial crimes. Legislative Council becomes increasingly important, the need to set up Select Committees to dispose of its duties will increase
accordingly.
As all Unofficial Members are hitherto appointed, we have in the past, out of our own initiative, set up various
Members take part working groups to carry out different tasks.
in these working groups in accordance with their individual interests and specialties. In most cases, seniority and the alphabetic order of our surnames will decide who will be the convener of a working group. Despite the success of such an arrangement, it has contributed to the fact that in the past seven years or so as a Legislative Councillor, I have never become a convener of any working group. One reason for this is, of course, that we have a galaxy of talents among the Unofficial Members, but I suspect that it also has something to do with the fact that my surname comes way down the list
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