TNAG-2013-FCO40-2865A-Constitutional-development-in-Hong-Kong-1991-1990 — Page 96

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

1 March 1990 香港立法局—————————一九九0年三月一日

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The introduction of functional constituencies to the legislature in 1985 has been widely accepted as a reasonable transitional arrangement in the course of local democratic development. This system enables various sectors to contribute their expertise to society through their representatives in this Council. In return, their views would be well reflected during the legislative process, ensuring the support of relevant parties to such legislation.

Since the draft Basic Law proposes retaining functional constituencies in the future SAR legislature for a considerable period of time, it is therefore logical to expand this system before 1997. Nevertheless, both the Hong Kong Government and the future SAR Administration should ensure that all functional constituency elections be held democratically and that sectoral interests, be they professional, trade, labour or whatever, should be discouraged.

The next point, Sir, I would like to deal with concerns money. I believe the Government should encourage potential community leaders to serve the public and stand for Legislative Council direct elections by granting future candidates a subsidy set at a realistic level for running election campaigns and it should be payable to a candidate on a reimbursement basis according to actual expenditure incurred during his campaign. Such a subsidy should be available to all candidates but should only be reimbursable if a candidate has obtained a certain percentage of valid votes cast in his constituency.

This might not be a perfect arrangement, but it would certainly help substantially remove any criticism that the rich have an edge over the not so well-off in public elections.

From next October 18 members of this Council will be returned by geographically-based direct elections. For those members representing functional constituencies it is expected that they are more than likely to remain within their field or group and therefore their employment, business or profession and will thus be in constant contact with their constituency. Those returned by direct elections will be expected to have at least the same contact with their constituencies. However they will suffer the disadvantage of not being in the same field or group as their constituencies. I believe therefore that there is a strong case for their stipend and allowance to the higher than their functional or appointed colleagues because they may have to give up full time employment to serve their constituents. We surely do not want to see our first batch of directly elected lawmakers being penalized financially or, even worse still, struggling to make ends meet.

Another urgent task, Sir, is to review and update existing electoral laws. For instance, section 21(1)(b) of the Legislative Council (Electoral Provisions)