Page 193
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
In the past few years, the allegations of corruptive practices during the past elections have plagued the Council to some extent. Be it true or false, the harassments have definitely tarnished the image of the Council to some extent. We should, at all costs, prevent such incident that may stain the public impression of the Council. By this reason, I believe, the Council should not sit back on this explosive issue. We should not rely solely on the existing Corrupt and Illegal Practices Ordinance and the Urban Council Ordinance as our only weapons to tackle this problem. The reason being that although it has some restraining effect, it is NOT designed, however, to serve as a deterrent measure to curb the mal-practice. Consequently it cannot be expected to protect the reputation of the Council. Therefore the Urban Council should show its stand clearly on this issue especially when the current anti-corruption drive is being geared into full swing, otherwise it would undoubtedly have an adverse effect on the image and integrity of the Council as a whole.
I suggest a study by the Council into this matter and take every possible and necessary measure to prevent and eradicate all sorts of corruptive practices in the future Urban Council elections. It is my heartfelt desire that these new measures be materialized before the 1975 election. On this issue, I call for amendment of the existing law to enable the formation of a Disciplinary Panel inside the Urban Council to deal with this utmost undesirable practices. I suggest the Panel should comprise 9 to 11 members who must be incumbent Councillors with at least 2 years' service on the Council. These members shall be appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of the Council. In future, if there is any solid allegation against a certain candidate then notwithstanding any Court proceedings having been contemplated or taken against the suspect or not, or the suspect having been convicted or not, a three-man Committee from members of the Panel should be immediately appointed by the Panel to look into the allegations. If the evidence is conclusive, the Committee must be furnished with statutory power to carry out investigations and to disqualify any guilty candidate if the Committee is satisfied with the evidence before it. The guilty candidate should be given a right of appeal to the Full Court. The Committee's statutory powers should include the following:
1. To enforce the attendance of witnesses and examine them upon oath or otherwise;
2. To compel the production of documents, books and Bank accounts;
3. To order an inspection of any property;
4. To punish persons guilty of contempt, if they fail to turn up.
I want to explain a bit further about this power of this Committee. The power enjoyed by this Committee will not exceed the jurisdiction of the Court. Some other organizations, like the Accountants Association, the Legal Practitioners Association, they all have this kind of disciplinary panel and they enjoy similar power to the panel I suggested. So if we have such a panel here in this Council, that means we can have an independent view. If there is a need to amend the law so as to set up such a panel, or because of their reasons there is a delay, then I would like to take this opportunity here to ask my Councillors to set up a special commission to deal with this kind of case. The main job would be to collect material concerning alleged corruption in elections, to make a report to the Standing Committee, and to be decided by the Standing Committee.
Mr. Chairman, my learned colleagues, may I stress here that my main purpose is to try to help the Council so that its image may not be tarnished in the future because of this alleged corruption. I feel that this Council should participate directly in this kind of affair to help to prevent and eradicate this kind of allegation of mal-practice. Of course, you may ask if this method is in fact effective. If I may venture to answer this question, well, this may not be the best solution because there may still be other ways out, and there are still loopholes, and I would like to take this opportunity to ask, and to appeal, to all the people here in Hong Kong who have the right to vote, to ask them to vote, and to elect the people they actually want, because I feel that the more the voters, the less the chance of corruption.
Mr. Chairman, I am happy to support the motion. (Applause).
MR. AMBROSE K. C. CHOI (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, fellow Councillors, I am happy to attend this annual debate. I would like to suggest some points for your consideration.
Urban Council is the only Government institution where there are elected councillors. This department deals with all the urban problems which are closely related with the public at large. But the voters were indifferent, ever since the Urban Council Election has been held. According to the statistics published by the Government, eligible voters numbered about 400,000 but the registered ones were 31,284 in total. The voters who had cast their votes at the last election were even less, only 8,675 in number. It represents about 0.25% of the total population of Hong Kong. This is really an astonishing phenomenon.
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314
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
In the past few years, the allegations of corruptive practices during the past elections have plagued the Council to some extent. Be it true or false, the harassments have definitely tarnished the image of the Council to some extent. We should, at all costs, prevent such incident that may stain the public impression of the Council. By this reason, I believe, the Council should not sit back on this explosive issue. We should not rely solely on the existing Corrupt and Illegal Practices Ordinance and the Urban Council Ordinance as our only weapons to tackle this problem. The reason being that although it has some restraining effect, it is NOT designed, however, to serve as a deterrent measure to curb the mal-practice. Consequently it cannot be expected to protect the reputation of the Council. Therefore the Urban Council should show its stand clearly on this issue especially when the current anti-corruption drive is being geared into full swing, otherwise it would undoubtedly have an adverse effect on the image and integrity of the Council as a whole.
I suggest a study by the Council into this matter and take every possible and necessary measure to prevent and eradicate all sorts of It is my corruptive practices in the future Urban Council elections. heartfelt desire that these new measures be materialized before the 1975 election. On this issue, I call for amendment of the existing law to enable the formation of a Disciplinary Panel inside the Urban Council to deal with this utmost undesirable practices. I suggest the Panel should comprise 9 to 11 members who must be incumbent These Councillors with at least 2 years' service on the Council. members shall be appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of the Council. In future, if there is any solid allegation against a certain candidate then notwithstanding any Court proceedings having been contemplated or taken against the suspect or not, or the suspect having been convicted or not, a three-man Committee from members of the Panel should be immediately appointed by the Panel to look into the allegations. If the evidence is conclusive, the Committee must be furnished with statutory power to carry out investigations and to disqualify any guilty candidate if the Committee is satisfied with the evidence before it. The guilty candidate should be given a right of appeal to the Full Court. The Committee's statutory powers should include the following:
1. To enforce the attendance of witnesses and examine them
upon oath or otherwise;
2.
To compel the production of documents, books and Bank accounts;
315
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
3.
To order an inspection of any property;
4.
To punish persons guilty of contempt, if they fail to turn up.
I want to explain a bit further about this power of this Com- mittee. The power enjoyed by this Committee will not exceed the jurisdiction of the Court. Some other organizations, like the Account- ants Association, the Legal Practitioners Association, they all have this kind of disciplinary panel and they enjoy similar power to the panel I suggested. So if we have such a panel here in this Council, that means we can have an independent view. If there is a need to amend the law so as to set up such a panel, or because of their reasons there is a delay, then I would like to take this opportunity here to ask my Councillors to set up a special commission to deal with this kind of case. The main job would be to collect material concerning alleged corruption in elections, to make a report to the Standing Committee, and to be decided by the Standing Committee. Mr. Chairman, my learned colleagues, may I stress here that my main purpose is to try to help the Council so that its image may not be tarnished in the future because of this alleged corruption. I feel that this Council should participate directly in this kind of affair to help to prevent and eradicate this kind of allegation of mal-practice. Of course, you may ask if this method is in fact effective. If I may venture to answer this question, well, this may not be the best solution because there may still be other ways out, and there are still loopholes, and I would like to take this opportunity to ask, and to appeal, to all the people here in Hong Kong who have the right to vote, to ask them to vote, and to elect the people they actually want, because I feel that the more the voters, the less the chance of corruption.
Mr. Chairman, I am happy to support the motion. (Applause).
MR. AMBROSE K. C. CHOI (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, fellow Councillors, I am happy to attend this annual debate. I would like to suggest some points for your consideration.
Urban Council is the only Government institution where there are elected councillors. This department deals with all the urban problems which are closely related with the public at large. But the voters were indifferent, ever since the Urban Council Election has been held. According to the statistics published by the Government, eligible voters numbered about 400,000 but the registered ones were 31,284 in total. The voters who had cast their votes at the last election were even less, only 8,675 in number. It represents about 0.25% of the total popula- tion of Hong Kong. This is really an astonishing phenomenon.
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