learnt that there is a very high degree of frustration among the electorate at Congress's failure to act in the national interest over issues such as the budget deficit. At the same time, there is satisfaction with individual Congressmen because of the success in meeting short term demands from voters. I am also struck by a voter survey in Korea, which suggests that voters are divided between those who want their elected representatives to exercise their judgement and those who wish them to act in accordance with instructions. Some of the most successful Parliaments reconcile these tensions because they mix directly elected Members with, for example, Appointed Members. under the Basic Law, we can achieve the same reconciliation with our mix of membership modes. However, we must also avoid some of the pitfalls described above and seek to emulate the strengths of successful legislatures.
10.
RECOMMENDATION A.
EMPHASIZE THE SEPARATENESS OF LEGCO. The 18th Century Scholar Baron de Montesquieu first delineated the separateness of executive, legislative judicial power which is now the essential underpinning of the modern democracies I have studied. Such a separation is provided for Hong Kong in the Joint Declaration and in Chapter II of the Basic Law. And yet so far as LegCo is concerned, the institutional arrangements do not reflect it. LegCo (qua OMELCO) is staffed by Civil Servants who are employed by the Executive (known in Hong Kong as the Administration). What it can and cannot do is determined by rules written by the Executive and its funds are approved in negotiation with the Civil Service machinery. The result is that expenditure is determined not by those who are concerned with the efficiency, effectiveness and productivity of the Council, but by remote officials of the Executive (in the Secretariat) who wish to maintain uniformity of standards throughout the public service. Practically the only source of research is information provided by the Executive to the Civil Service staff of OMELCO. At the same time the Clerk to the Legislative Council works under the day to day direction of the Chief Secretary.
11.
The lack of a separate identity is reflected in a number of ways. The Executive is the engine for revising and updating LegCo's standing orders, the Executive conducts Parliament-to-Parliament relations not LegCo, : elsewhere this task is left to Parliaments. The Executive frequently breaches the well established convention that Parliament should be the first to know of new policies and Bills. In my view also LegCo is inadequately resourced to hold the Executive to account. I deal with this below (paras 47-51)7.
12.
The lack of recognition of LegCo's distinctiveness is reflected in a variety of more subtle ways. For example Jardine Matthesons took their current dispute with the SFC to the Administration, where elsewhere they might have lobbied the legislature too. At the same time the Administration encourages the by-passing of LegCo with its proliferation of consultative committees established in pre-representative government days. Moreover, since many of these extra-parliamentary Committees
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