8
CONFIDENTIAL,
HKB 01214 RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
O 2FEB 1990
BACKGROUND NOTE: HONG KONG: CONSTITUTIONAL DEVEDOPMENTER
INDEX
RY
HA
Taken
GRAND ELECTORAL COLLEGE (GEC)
one of
1.
In papers handed over to the Chinese in May and October 1986 the British side suggested that a Grand Electoral College was three possible methods for selection the SAR Chief Executive (CE) and might also be used as means of "validating" the present appointed and official members of LegCo (in order to comply with the provisions of the JD that the legislature should be constituted by election).
2.
3.
The rationale for such suggestions was:
(A) To ensure that the CE was selected after careful
consideration of the merits of different candidates, and that he enjoyed the confidence and support of a broad sector of the community: and
(B) To ensure that the future CE would enjoy reasonable support in the legislature and that Government business would therefore be enacted efficiently and expeditiously. For example, the Chief Executive could present a list of senior officials to the electoral college for election as voting members of the legislature.
Subsequently we backed away from this idea, believing it would lead to politicisation of officials and would not be consistent with the spirit of the Joint Declaration. However,
the concept of a broadly based GEC, as a means of electing a proportion of the members of the legislature, was floated as one of the options in the Hong Kong Government's Green Paper "the 1987 Review of Developments in Representative Government" as a matter for discussion for the longer term. In the event the GEC concept attracted very little public interest in the context of the 1987 review. It was included in one of the four options for constituting the SAR legislature in the first draft of the Basic Law, but it was not included in the second draft published in February 1989.
Redacted under FOI exemption sections 27 (1)(a), (c), (d)
RIDADG
CONFIDENTIAL