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should seek no more or no less than is necessary to enable
legislators to discharge their duties and obligations properly,
without fear or favour.
We deliberated at length and in great detail particularly over the provisions of Clause 20 and Clause 24. The resultant consensus is that Clause 20 will be deleted entirely and that Clause 24 will be so amended as to reflect our agreement that unlawful acts of the Council or the President or officers of the Council would still be subjected
to the scrutiny of the judiciary.
I will not attempt to dwell any further on the various amendments and the rationale behind them as I am sure they will be more competently covered by my colleagues in their respective speeches. Instead, I would like to comment briefly on one widely publicised assertion that it would not be conducive to public confidence in the legislature if this Bill is pushed through with "indecent haste" during the current
session before the arrival of the elected members. Such is
forwarded as one of the principal reasons behind the call for deferment of the Second Reading of the Bill. Sir, I am sure I
will not be alone in questioning the logic behind such an assertion and the validity of its implied assumptions. Public confidence in the legislature surely has to be earned, it does not come automatically with the arrival or otherwise of elected members. In any case, the implied assumption that elected members would have less vested interest than appointed members in this issue does not hold true. Why then should it follow that appointed members, sitting in the current session of the legislature, will not be able to look after the interest of the public whilst deliberating over the provisions of this Bill. In my view, if and when Members are first satisfied that they have been conscientious and deligent in their deliberations and in so doing, secondly, have fully taken into consideration of all representation whilst trying, thirdly, to take steps to amend what might have been wrong, then, their duties as legislators would have been discharged honorably.