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Inevision for elections earlier
the due daté
(b) Sessions of the Legislative Council
The concept of dissolution has been abandoned because it carried with it not only the implication of sweeping powers of intervention on the part of the Governor, but also an unnecessary degree of uncertainty as to the terms of office of members and the frequency of elections. Instead it is proposed to relate the "life" of the Legislative Council to a 3-year period based on successive sessions, each period to end at the beginning of the session in the fourth year.
The key to this new approach is in new clause XXIA of the revised draft Instructions. The object is to make the existing practice, that is, one session in every twelve months which begins and ends on dates fixed by the Governor under Standing Orders, the basic rule. At present, a session usually runs for 10 months; but Standing Orders permit the Council to be recalled during the recess.
The "life" of the new Legislative Council would thus be determined by the Governor. But the constraints as to the interval permitted between one session and the next, and the requirement to hold a "general" election before the beginning of the session in the fourth year, will leave him with the minimum discretion in fixing dates. If the existing practice is preserved, the tenure of office of members will be approximately 3 years continuing up to the date when a new Legislative Council convenes in 1988.
(c) Titles of different kinds of Members
The objective here is to remove the description "Unofficial" which has been a source of some misunderstanding outside Hong Kong. The proposed solution is to use three titles - Official, (which will include ex-officio members), Appointed (which will replace "Unofficial"), and Elected.
(d) Disqualification of Appointed Members clause XVII in the draft Instructions
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Not all of the grounds for the disqualification of Elected members which are set out in the Electoral Bill are appropriate in the case of Appointed members. The solution adopted in the
/revised
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