TNAG-1596-FCO40-2181-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 133

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(b)

(c)

8.

being of the community;

members elected by geographic constituencies would provide

balanced representation of the views of ordinary residents;

members elected by the "Grand Electoral College" could be

chosen to fill any gaps in representation arising from the

other methods of election, thus ensuring that the Legislature

continued to benefit from the widest possible range of

talents and experience.

It would also be necessary to decide whether the different

groups of elected members should be in roughly equal proportions, or whether one group should be in the majority. As suggested in the

covering paper to the notes handed over in October 1986, it would

probably not be desirable for the Basic Law to attempt to prescribe

the exact number of members to be elected in each category, or to

set an absolute limit on the total size of the Legislature, although

it might lay down the minimum and/or maximum proportion of seats to be filled by each group. Such an approach would allow flexibility for further adjustment to the composition of the Legislature, during

the 50 years following 1997, if changing circumstances rendered this

appropriate.

THE FUTURE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

9.

Paragraphs 13 and 14 of Note 2 in this series referred to the

important role played by government officials in the workings of the

legislature, and to the need to consider how this can be maintained.

There would seem to be two possible ways in which this might be

achieved:

(a)

in line with the suggestion in paragraph 10 of Note 1, key

senior officials could be included in the list of candidates

nominated by the Chief Executive for election to the

Legislature by the "Grand Electoral College" (if this system

of election were to be introduced); or

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