CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION
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The Election Committee, comprising all elected district board members, elects 10 Legislative Council Members. The qualifications for candidature in the Election Committee constituency election are the same as those for the geographical constituency elections, except that each nomination requires five subscribers. Elections for the Election Committee are by the Single Transferable Vote System.
Electoral System for the Municipal Councils and the District Boards
All appointed seats in the Urban Council, Regional Council and district boards have been abolished and elections to these bodies are on a geographical basis. There are 18 district boards with 346 members elected from single-seat constituencies. In the New Territories, the 27 Rural Committee chairmen are ex officio members of the respective district boards.
For the Urban Council, 32 members are elected from geographical, single-seat constituencies, and one each from the nine urban district boards. The Regional Council has 27 members elected from single-seat, geographical constituencies, and nine from the nine New Territories district boards. There are also three ex officio members: the chairman and the two vice-chairmen of the Heung Yee Kuk.
Elections to the district boards and the municipal councils are by simple majority. Electors may vote only in the constituency in which they are registered. The qualifications for candidature in the district board and municipal council elections are the same as those for the Legislative Council geographical constituency elections, except that each nomination requires 10 subscribers.
Boundary and Election Commission
The independent and apolitical Boundary and Election Commission, operating under the Boundary and Election Commission Ordinance since July 1993, reviews and makes recommendations to the Governor on the geographical constituency boundaries of the Legislative Council, the municipal councils, and the district boards. The three-member commission is also responsible for overseeing the conduct and supervision of elections, keeping under review the procedure for these elections and the arrangements for registration of electors to ensure that the elections are conducted openly, honestly and fairly. The Registration and Electoral Office, a government department headed by the Chief Electoral Officer, is the executive arm of the Boundary and Election Commission. It works under the commission's direction and carries out its decisions.
Advisory Boards and Committees
The network of advisory boards and committees is a distinctive feature of the system of government. It seeks to obtain, through consultation with interested groups and individuals in the community, the best possible advice on which to base decisions.
Advisory bodies give advice to the government through a branch secretary or a head of department. They can broadly be divided into two categories - statutory bodies (such as the Antiquities Advisory Board) and non-statutory bodies (such as the Construction Advisory Board). Their areas of activities are wide-ranging. Some deal with the interests of a particular industry, such as the Fish Marketing Advisory Board. Others advise on a particular area of government policy or public interest, such as the Transport Advisory Committee. Some of these bodies also carry out