TNAG-1596-FCO40-2181-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 135

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13.

The options would seem to be:

(a)

for the Legislature to continue, as now, to have a fixed term

of office of either three or four years which would coincide with that of the Chief Executive (paragraph 11 of Note I refers); or

(b)

14.

for the Legislature not to have a fixed term but, instead, to be in continuous session with elections of different groups

of members being held at different times.

The advantages of Option (A) are that there would be a single set of elections to the Legislature once every three or four years,

and the Chief Executive would work with the same body of members

throughout his term of office. The disadvantages are that there

would be a complete break in the continuity of government every few

years, with both the Chief Executive and members of the Legislature

leaving office at the same time. While this could be avoided by,

for example, extending the term of office of the chief Executive,

there would then be the problem that his term of office was no

longer synchronised with that of the members nominated by him for

election by the GEC (paragraph 10 of Note 1 refers) and on whom he

was relying for support in the Legislature.

15.

The advantage of Option (B) is that it would tend to foster stability and continuity of government. For example, if the

Legislature were composed of three groups of members, as suggested

in paragraph 4 above, the elections of the various groups might be

"staggered" in such a way that the election of the members by the

GEC method were held shortly after the election of the Chief

Executive, but elections for the other two groups of members were

held say, two years later, half-way through the term of office of

the Chief Executive. Thus, when a new Chief Executive assumed

office, there would already be a body of experienced members in the

Legislature from whom he could select some of the principal advisers

to sit on his Executive Council, if this seemed appropriate.

16. As indicated in paragraph 24 of Note 1, such a system would present problems in the event that the legislature had to be

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