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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Recently, we have been arguing heatedly over the question of whether appointed seats of the Urban Council should be totally abolished. I have no intention to write off the contributions made by appointed members to the community over the past decades. But time changes and so do the systems. It is an inevitable trend of democratization for public officers to be monitored by the public and to receive authority from the public. Therefore, the existing Municipal Councils or the Municipal Councils advocated by the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood and myself should be totally constituted by elected members.
As for those appointed members with professional knowledge in municipal matters, I hope that they will stand for elections so that they will have the public mandate to continue their community service. If they, for personal reasons, refuse to run for the elections, I think the future elected members will appoint them into the working groups under the Council or proposed Municipal Councils according to their expertise, so that their talent can still be made use of.
DR. THE HON. SAMUEL WONG PING-WAI (in English):—Mr. Chairman, on 7 October 1992, the Governor in his policy address to Legco proposed that appointed seats to the Municipal Councils be abolished. Subsequently this Council disagreed, voting for some appointed seats to remain. On 29 December the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs stated publicly that there had been nothing in the counter proposals to the Governor's package which warranted any change to it, before presentation to Legco. That is downright undemocratic.
So where have we gone wrong? We have gone wrong because so many people, including the Government, don't fully understand democracy. What is it? Democracy is rule by the majority of the people. For it to work, six conditions have to be fulfilled.
First, there must be universal franchise—all people of voting age and residency must have the right to vote. In Hong Kong, they have.
Secondly, candidates must have freedom to stand for election so that voters have a fair choice. In Hong Kong they have.
Thirdly, there must be enough elected seats for the people to be properly represented on all the bodies concerned. This is only partly true.
Fourthly, having been given opportunity to exercise their right to rule, the people must play their part and vote. The majority don't.
Fifthly, the successful candidate must represent the people to the best of their ability. They do.
Sixthly, the Government must pay due respect to the views of the people and their representatives. They don't.
Clearly, the Government is expending their efforts on the wrong weaknesses.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
As I have suggested, we have universal franchise and freedom of choice of candidates, unlike some countries where the Government chooses the candidates. I am not sure, however, that freedom is fully protected.
The third condition, however, to have enough elected seats, is not met entirely in Hong Kong. But what do we mean by enough elected seats? It is pertinent that this Council voted against abolishing all its appointed seats. Yet I am sure we would regard ourselves as democratic. So democracy does not mean all seats have to be elected in the same way, as long as the people are allowed to rule, at least through a majority of representatives. Likewise, in Legco the presence of functional constituencies does not necessarily mean a lack of democracy, provided those constituencies have sufficient voters to give the people who truly belong to them, by occupation or profession, a reasonable say.
It is the fourth condition that really lets Hong Kong down. How can you have rule by the people if they don't exercise their right to rule—if they don't vote? In recent elections worldwide the percentage of eligible, not just registered but eligible voters who turned out was: United States 55%, Thailand 60%, Ireland 70%. In our last elections the geographical constituencies could only muster 17%. Even our most popular candidates could not muster support from even 10% of their constituencies. That is not rule by the people. It is rule by the minority. It is downright undemocratic.
The fifth condition, that successful candidates truly represent their constituencies, I believe it is true, certainly if the time we put in is anything to go by.
But the sixth is not. How can the Government so arrogantly disregard a democratic vote of this Council? How can they put forward a constitutional package and then arrogantly disregard all counter proposals and comments from all over the community?
Because administration is not democratically accountable to the people. In other countries, ministers are selected and accountable. Not so here.
My conclusion is that, while proponents of democracy, especially those most claiming to be so in political parties dedicated to that end, are calling for better opportunities for the people to be represented, which are actually quite good already, few are pursuing the real problems, namely that people don't vote and the Government ignores them anyway.
In my view, the major objectives of any constitutional package should be first to get people to vote and secondly to force the administration to be democratically accountable.
With these few words, Mr. Chairman, I support the motion.
THE HON. MARVIN CHEUNG KIN-TUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, in his speech to the Legislative Council on 7 October last year, the Governor
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