CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION
uencies; for functional constituencies, an elector who is an individual must have been registered under the Electoral Provisions Ordinance for the Urban Council, Regional Council and district board elections and be a member of an organisation forming part of the relevant constituency. No person may be registered in more than one functional constituency. An elector who is not an individual must nominate a person not already an elector in his own right in the same constituency to be its authorised representative to vote at an election. That person may not be the authorised representative of another elector in the same or any other constituency. However, if eligible, a person may be registered to vote both in the electoral college and in the functional constituency to which he belongs apart from voting as an authorised representative. For 1989, the number of electors registered in the electoral college and the functional constituencies stands at 465 and 58 222 respectively, as compared to the corresponding potential electorate of 467 and 104 466 respectively.
The qualifications for candidature are simple: for an electoral college constituency, any person who is an elector registered under the Electoral Provisions Ordinance (and not necessarily an elector in any electoral college constituency) and who has been resident in Hong Kong for the preceding 10 or more years, may be nominated if supported by five electors in that constituency; for a functional constituency, any person who is an elector registered under the Electoral Provisions Ordinance, has been resident in Hong Kong for the preceding 10 or more years and has a substantial connection with the relevant functional constituency may be nominated if supported by 10 electors in the constituency concerned.
A preferential elimination voting system is adopted for both electoral college constit- uencies and functional constituencies.
Planning for direct elections to the Legislative Council to be held in 1991 is now in hand. Details of the conduct of the elections are under active consideration.
Advisory Committees
The network of government boards and committees is a distinctive feature of the system of government in the territory which seeks to obtain, through consultation with interested groups in the community, the best possible advice on which to base decisions. Thus advisory bodies of one kind or another are found in nearly all government depart- ments and quasi-government bodies. In general, advisory bodies may be divided into five categories: statutory bodies which give advice to a head of department (such as the Endangered Species Advisory Board); statutory bodies which give advice to the govern- ment (such as the Board of Education); non-statutory bodies which give advice to a head of department (such as the Labour Advisory Board); non-statutory bodies which give advice to the government (such as the Transport Advisory Committee), and committees which are executive in nature (such as the Hong Kong Examinations Authority).
Government officials and members of the public are represented on these committees. About 5 100 members of the public are appointed to serve on a total of 437 boards and committees, and some serve on more than one of these advisory bodies. These mem- bers are appointed on account of their specialist knowledge or expertise, or through their record or interest in contributing to the life of the community. Increasing importance has been attached to the contribution they make to the formulation and execution of government policies and, in order to utilise their potential to the full, a systematic and regular monitoring of the composition and effectiveness of these bodies is carried out. Where appropriate, the government will broaden the cross-section of representation and encourage an inflow of new ideas through a reasonable turnover of membership.
33