3
13 March,
as I explained when moving the Second Reading on
that candidates for election to the Legislative Council are
competent to represent the interests of that constituency as a
whole by virtue of their personal experience and involvement
in the functional area concerned and so avoid a situation in
which a person with no connection with the functional area is
elected. The term "substantial connexion" is incapable of
being precisely defined for its meaning embraces a host of
variables and permutations. This is the reason why we have
However,
sought to explain the concept by way of examples.
Members may
may be assured that, in the unlikely event of the
Registration Officer being called upon to determine whether or
not an aspirant candidate does have a "substantial connexion",
he will be well briefed and will apply common sense (and we
Civil Servants are not entirely lacking in that admirable
quality). I say "in the unlikely event", for we propose in
the upcoming Legislative Council (Electoral Provisions)
(Procedure) Regulations to provide that a candidate will need
to be endorsed by ten electors in the constituency before he
may stand which, in itself, will go a long way to establishing
that there exists a "substantial connexion", for presumably
those electors will also exercise common sense when taking a
view on the candidate's claim to have a substantial connexion.
6
As for Dr Ho's and Dr Ip's technical point, we shall
have to wait to see how it is proposed that the Procedure
regulations, when they come forward in a few weeks' time, will
define the mechanics of the electoral process itself in order
to throw up a candidate with an absolute majority.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.