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Those who look to these sittings for the acrimony and point scoring which characterise the debates of legislatures elsewhere will be disappointed to find an atmosphere of civilized calm. It is this atmosphere which has often led people to draw the wrong conclusions. The critical role that Members play in the Government of Hong Kong is more accurately reflected in the constant less formal committee and group activity in which Councillors are involved. While the formal proceedings on the floor of the Chamber for enacting a "bill" (i.e. a draft law) will rarely take up more than an hour or two of the Council's time, Councillors may have committed many hundreds of man hours off stage to scrutinizing the legislation and suggesting how it may be improved.
Typically a bill may start with discussions between the Government and one Or more of the many boards and committees which have been set up to provide advice across the entire spectrum of Government activities. Members of the Legislative Council sit on many of these committees and increasingly they are being appointed to chair the most important of them.
After these first tentative discussions, there will be further discussions with many local bodies including advisory committees, chambers of commerce and trade associations, District Boards social welfare agencies, and members of other bodies, such as traditional clan organisations and pressure groups. During the course of these discussions the original draft bill will be amended, honed, pruned, redrafted, with clauses inserted or clauses removed, until the proposition is, if not entirely uncontentious, at least likely to command a high degree of general public
support.
The Administration then submits its proposals to the Executive Council, the highest policy making body in Hong Kong and seeks the Governor-in-Council's (i.e. the Governor acting on the advice of the Council) approval to introduce its bill into the Legislative Council. Here
Here again Legislative Councillors will play an important role because a majority of the Members of the Executive Council are also Legislative Councillors.
1st and 2nd Readings
The draft bill is now ready to go forward to the Legislative Council. It is formally introduced at a "First Reading' 11 some two to three weeks after it has been cleared by the Executive Council.
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