TNAG-2859-FCO40-4113-Application-of-the-International-Covenant-on-Civil-and-Polit-1993 — Page 11

Unfortunately, to their great disappointment, it was only in 1991, seven year after the Joint Declaration that Hong Kong people could directly elect eighteen out of the sixty councilors, less than one-third, to represent them in the Legislative Council. For other councillors, eighteen are appointed members; three are government officials; twenty-one were elected by the 15 functional constituencies in which the franchise is limited to about 190,000 people - which is dominated by the privileged class made up of professionals and businessmen.

Under the functional constituencies system, the voting rights are confusing, as some are given to individuals and some to selected groups only. Persons eligible for voting inside the functional constituencies also have the right to vote in direct elections. The election of Legislative Councillors through the functional constituencies is contravening Article 25(b) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which stipulates that elections shall be by universal and equal suffrage.

In October 1992, Mr. Chris Pattern, the Governor of Hong Kong, announced a reform package on the political system,which essentially is to broaden the franchise for the functional constituencies in 1995. He also proposed to abolish all appointed seats in the District Boards and two Municipal Councils, with the exception of ex-officio members in the New Territories, and to replace these by directly elected members.

However, the Governor's proposal is only a very conservative measure to democratize the existing political system. First, he did not ask for an increase of directly elected seats in the Legislative Council. Secondly, the unequal power structure of the present political system remains unchanged. Presently, the policy-making power lies not in the Legislative Council but in the executive. All policies are formulated by the civil service, especially the top officials, the governor and the Executive Council. The Executive Council is an advisory body to the governor. All its members are appointed by the governor. The legislative councilors only have rights to approve or disapprove the bills proposed by the executive, but they do not hold any formal power to push their own proposals into government policies.

This monopoly of power by the executive is preserved in the Basic Law. The chief executive of the future Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will be elected by an election committee composed of 800 members instead of general suffrage. The method of selection of the committee's members is still unknown. The Basic Law acts as a mini-constitution of Hong Kong after 1997. It was drafted and promulgated by China. The present unequal power distribution between the business and professional sectors and the low socio-economic groups will be preserved under the Basic Law. The Basic Law also limits the development of political participation in Hong Kong. According to the Basic Law, only in 2003 will there be 30 directly elected seats - half of the members to the Legislative Council - and there is no guarantee of universal suffrage for all Legislative Councillors.

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