TNAG-1442-FCO40-1926-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 21

G.F. 316

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voting members, although they could appear before the Legislature. The Legislature itself would thus have no equivalent of either the present appointed or official members.

7.

This proposal might be workable, if it could be confidently assumed the Chief Executive's policies, based as they would be on the fundamantal policies of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region set out in the Joint Declaration, could always be expected to enjoy sufficient support in a Council elected by direct, indirect or functional constituency methods. Such an assumption might be valid if the Chief Executive:

8.

a) were elected by the Legislature (see paragraph 7(b) of the paper on the Question of Convergence; or

b) presented the members of his Executive to the Legislature for a vote of confidence (see paragraph 14 of the paper on the Question of Convergence). This confidence, however, would not necessarily survive for the whole of the legislative session; or

c) chose the members of his Executive from among members of the Legislature.

If, however, the assumption in paragraph 7 above were not valid, and none of courses (a), (b) or (c) above were adopted, then it is necessary to consider where in the Legislature the Chief Executive could look for support for his policies. The benefit of cross-membership between the Executive and the Legislature in this connection is discussed in a separate paper. But it could be argued that such support could not be guaranteed unless at least a proportion of the Legislature was selected by the same electorate as would choose the Chief Executive himself.

9.

A possible solution would be to validate the membership of the present appointed and official members by some form of election in order to comply with the provisions of the Joint Declaration (see paragraph 2 above).

10.

One possible way of doing this as regards official members would be to validate their choice through a broadly based electoral college, if such a body were to be used as the means of choosing the Chief Executive. The Chief Executive could present a list of his senior officials to the electoral college for election as full voting members of the Legislature.

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