TNAG-2720-FCO40-3926-Hong-Kong-electoral-provisions-and-arrangements-including-Bo-1993 — Page 269

Official Members, in the Legislative Council. The appointment system will in any case have to cease by 1997, because of the stipulation in the Sino-British Joint Declaration that the legislature of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will be constituted by elections. Nevertheless there is a strong argument against moving too quickly in this direction. The introduction of 24 Elected Members in 1985, out of a total membership of 56, marked a significant change in the overall composition of the Council. The effect of any further changes would need to be carefully measured.

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39. The ten Official Members-three ex-officio and seven appointed—are responsible for introducing Government business into the Legislative Council, explaining Government policy and answering other Members' questions on the administration of Hong Kong. They will continue to be required to fulfil these functions until the relevant longer-term constitutional issues have been settled. The number of Official Members was reduced in 1985 from 18 to ten. As a result, Official Members now have to handle some matters in the Council which do not fall within their particular areas of policy responsibility. This system is not ideal; it would clearly be better to have the official directly responsible for each item of business present in the Council to handle it. However, this would mean either appointing more Official Members, or finding alternative ways of enabling a wider range of officials to participate in the Council's proceedings. The response to the Green Paper showed that most people are not in favour of increasing the number of Official Members. Alternatives might be to arrange for different groups of officials to attend each meeting or to have officials attend meetings as non-members. An ever-changing team of Official Members would, however, run the risk of radically altering the relationship between the Council and the Administration or damaging the cohesion of the Council.

Elected Members

40. As set out in Chapter III of this White Paper, ten directly elected members will be introduced into the Legislative Council in 1991. They will replace the ten members currently elected by the geographical (District Board) constituencies of the electoral college. The remaining two seats under the present electoral college arrangement are filled by the special constituencies of the Urban and Regional Councils. There are strong reasons for continuing to have elected representatives of the two Municipal Councils on the Legislative Council. They form a key part of the system of links between the three tiers of representative government (as described in paragraph 17(b) of Chapter II). Consequently, although the present electoral college will be abolished in 1991, the Government has decided to retain two special constituencies so that each of the Municipal Councils may continue to elect a Member to the Legislative Council.

41. So far as the functional constituency system is concerned, there is a good case for limited expansion in 1988. The system has worked well since its introduction in 1985. The public response to the Green Paper showed that there

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is wide support for developing it further. The Green Paper suggested the following guidelines by which to consider whether a group or groups sho become a functional constituency:

(a) functional constituencies should be substantial and of importance in

the community;

(b) any new constituency should be clearly defined to avoid difliculties

over who qualifies for inclusion and how the electorate is prescribed: (c) constituencies should not be based on ideology, dogma or religion; ‹-

самер (d) particular groups or bodies should not be represented in more than

one functional constituency.

When these guidelines are applied to the many claims made for functional constituency representation, they suggest that the range of sectors represented by the present nine constituencies* is about right but that there is a case for enlarging particular constituencies to include more groups with related interests. Consequently the Government has concluded that there should be a small increase in the number of seats elected through functional constituencies.

Conclusions

42.

In the light of all these considerations, the Government has decided that the composition of the Legislative Council from 1988 should be as follows:

(a) There will continue to be ten Official Members, as at present. In order to ensure that official representation in the Council is as effective as possible, the Governor may from time to time appoint different officials to the Council according to the business to be conducted during the session and the policy expertise required. Each appointment will be for a continuous period of reasonable length.

(b) The number of Appointed Members will be reduced from 22 to 20. (c) The number of Members elected by functional constituencies will be increased from twelve to 14. One additional Member will be elected from an enlarged Financial constituency (to be renamed the 'Finance and Accountancy' constituency) and will represent members of the accountancy profession. The other will be elected from an enlarged Medical constituency (to be renamed the 'Medical and Health Care' constituency) which will have two divisions: one consisting of doctors and dentists and the other of nurses, midwives, pharmacists and five paramedical professions. Each division will elect one Member to the Legislative Council. Details of how these two new constituencies will be organized are given at Appendix B.

(d) The number of Members elected by the electoral college will remain

unchanged.

• The present nine constituencies are: Commercial: Industrial: Financial: Labour: Social Services: Medical; Teaching; Legal; and Engineering, Architectural, Surveying and Planning.

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