Legislative Council from among their own number" and that further considerations should be given to the setting up of a ministerial system.
of
not contain any the two matters
The 1984 White Paper did recommendations on either pertaining to changes to the Executive Council but promised that "the whole subject will be addressed further at a later stage. E1
During the
of them
Legislative Council debate on the White Paper on 9th January 1985, the then Chief Secretary, Sir Philip Haddon-Cave promised that the 1987 review would consider at least 4 questions, one being "the possible developments in the composition and the method of selection Executive Council including ministerial system".
some
powers,
of the form of
by the
Sir Philip Haddon-Cave's promise was not kept Hong Kong Government in the 1987 Green Paper, without giving any explanation.
During a press conference in Hong Kong on 19th September 1987, Lord Glenarthur, the new Minister of State with special responsibility for Hong Kong, was asked why the issue of setting up a ministerial system had been omitted in the 1987 Green Paper. Lord Glenarthur's answer was:
J
"Well, I am not sure that it is really useful to
concentrate much on history in all this
H
too
of
As to the Legislative Council, the 1984 White Paper concluded that elections should be introduced to the Legislative Council in 1985 consisting of two types of elections: Electoral Colleges and Functional Constituencies; but reported that "the bulk public response from all
sources suggested а cautious approach with a gradual start by introduing very small number of directly elected members in 1988 and building up to a significant number of directly elected members in 1997".
a
The people of Hong Kong were thus 1 ed to believe that after the introduction of indirect elections to the Legislative Council in September 1985, the next step would be to introduce partial direct elections in 1988 and that the number of directly elected seats would increase steadily towards 1997.
Recent events have, however, driven us to believe that the British Administration in Hong Kong is not going to meet its commitment of introducing direct election s in 1988 because of the very strong objections from the Chinese Government. If this should turn out to be the case, the people of Hong Kong and members of the British Parliament would