TNAG-2010-FCO40-2862-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-General-Election-Com-1990 — Page 69

S.

GF.

FAX TO DARWIN CHEN, GDB

FCO TEL. OF 29/1 REFERS

HKB 012 1+

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

JESK

INDEX

O 2 FEB 1990

RICER

ZA

CONFIDENTIAL

FROM:

Paul Fifoot

Legal Advisers

RY

K 159

Taken

270 3058

Pm

DATE:

26 January 1990

2

1991

RM29/1

Miss Major, HKD Misy Majo

A GRAND ELECTORAL COMMITTEE

1. In making proposals for a Grand Electoral Committee to elect a proportion of the members of the legislature, we need to consider the following elements:-

(1) Who, or what bodies, are to choose the members of the GEC;

(2)

(3)

How are those persons or bodies to choose the members of the GEC;

Who, in turn, are to be eligible for selection by the GEC as members of the legislature;

(4) How is the GEC to choose the members of the legislature.

Which Persons or Bodies are to Choose the Members of the GEC

2. I think the most important point here is that those persons or bodies ("the constituencies") shall be different from, or composed differently from, the constituencies which elect the directly elected members of the legislature and the members representing functional constituencies. It will not be possible to avoid all duplication with the directly elected or functional constituencies, but we must do our best. This is particularly important vis-a-vis the functional constituencies because, under the separate voting system proposed in Guangzhou, the directly elected members element in the legislature will be diluted by the GEC members.

3.

Hong Kong will be best able to advise on how differently constituted constituencies may be formed. Two possibilities

are:-

(a)

"Former Political Figures" which picks up the concept in the draft decision of the NPC. At the initial stages, it is unlikely that we could accept the description of former political figures set out in the draft decision but what we could aim at would be former members of EXCO and LEGCO provided that they are permanent residents, are not standing for election in a directly elected or functional constituency and, probably, were not official members. would produce a fairly small constituency with a correspondingly small number of representatives on the GEC.

This

CONFIDENTIAL