TNAG-2730-FCO40-3936-Future-of-Hong-Kong-constitutional-development-1993 — Page 8

CONFIDENTIAL

XCX(93)8

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Decisions of the Governor in Council on constituency boundaries should be declared before commencement of the voter registration exercise preceding the election. This is because unless the constituencies are declared, it would not be possible to allocate electors to the appropriate constituencies. For the District Board elections in September 1994 and the elections to the Urban Council and Regional Council in March 1995, they would use the same electoral roll to be updated by the voter registration exercise which would commence in April 1994. This means that the Commission has to submit its recommendations relating to these boards and councils to the Governor before the end of 1993 (Clause 18(3)(a)(i) and (b)(i)) so as to allow for a period of three months, which is probably the minimum time required, for the Governor in Council to deliberate on the Commission's recommendations. From 1995 onwards, when the election cycle would be four years for all three tiers of elections, the Commission should submit its recommendations relating to an election to the Governor not later than 36 months after the preceding election was held (Clause 18(3)(a)(ii) and (b)(ii)).

Statutory criteria for demarcation of constituency boundaries

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The Commission should observe the principle of equal representation in delineating constituencies. It will ensure that the population in each constituency does not differ from the population quota (i.e. the average population per constituency) for the relevant board or council by more than 25% (the 25% margin rule) (Clause 21(1)(a)(i)). At the district level, there will be one population quota (total population of Hong Kong divided by the total number of elected seats in all District Boards) (Clause 16(1)). District Board constituencies would be used as "building blocks" for the constituencies of the Urban Council, Regional Council and LegCo (Clause 21(1)(a)(iii)).

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The Commission should also give due considerations to community identities, administrative boundaries and physical features of individual constituencies (Clause 21(1)(a)(ii), (b) and (c)), but the 25% margin rule would normally take precedence over these criteria. To take account of exceptional circumstances, the Commission should be empowered to depart from the 25% margin rule if it considers that adherence to this rule would lead to serious deviation from the other criteria (Clause 21(2)). As a safeguard against an abuse of this power, the Commission should be required to give an explanation for not adhering to the 25% margin rule in each individual case (Clause 18(1)(e)).