XN000022-1985-03-13 — Page 5

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1985

District Boards Ordinances.

There is a special

Council and District provision in Clause 5(b) for the tenure of office of the member elected by the members of the Provisional Regional Council in 1985 to end when the Provisional Regional Council ceases exist in 1986. A new member will be elected by the members of the full Regional Council when it has been established.

to

Part

III of

the

Bill

deals

with the

electoral

franchise and with the question of eligibility to register as twelve electoral college

the are

of members

the

an

In the

case

of

electors

the

elector. constituencies, eligible

District Boards and the Urban Council and Regional Council.

a result of views

As

expressed by a

number of representative functional constituencies,

organisations making up certain

there is one important exception to the rule announced in the an elector in White Paper, namely, that in order to qualify as a functional constituency a person must also be registered as an elector on the general electoral roll under the Electoral Provisions Ordinance. Clause 13(3) provides, for the purpose of the 1985 elections only, that a person shall be eligible for registration as a a functional constituency elector whether not he is registered on the general electoral roll, provided he This will is duly qualified and eligible to be so registered.

to register on the general enable those persons who failed electoral roll last year, despite the intensive publicity which

was

point At

that

time,

to

elections

to

or

many

this

for apply devoted to registration on their

their functional constituency electoral roll. This special provision has been introduced to enable as members of the various functional constituencies as possible to

for these first electors

the register as

it Legislative Council, so that the representative quality, as were, of elected members of functional constituencies is suspect. Thus we have met the views of those who petitioned us on this point. But we have done so having regard to the public

/interest, not