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Constitution and Administration

• To receive and handle complaints from Hong Kong residents;

• If a motion initiated jointly by one-fourth of all the members of the Legislative Council charges the Chief Executive with a serious breach of law or dereliction of duty and if he or she refuses to resign, the Legislative Council may, after passing a motion for investigation, give a mandate to the Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal to form and chair an independent investigation committee. The committee shall carry out the investigation and report its findings to the Legislative Council. If the committee considers the evidence sufficient to substantiate such charges, the Legislative Council may pass a motion of impeachment by a two-thirds majority of all its members and report it to the Central People's Government (CPG) for decision; and

• To summon, as required when exercising the above-mentioned powers and functions, persons concerned to testify or give evidence.

Composition

According to the Basic Law, the Legislative Council of the HKSAR shall be constituted by election. The Sixth Legislative Council comprises 70 members', of whom 35 were returned by geographical constituencies through direct elections and 35 were returned by functional constituencies. The Sixth Legislative Council's term of office is four years from 1 October 2016 to 30 September 2020. The President of the Legislative Council is elected by and from among the council's members.

Meetings of the Legislative Council

The Legislative Council normally meets on Wednesdays. The business at its regular meetings. includes introducing and considering bills and proposed resolutions; tabling subsidiary legislation, papers and reports for the council's consideration; asking questions on the government's work; and debating motions concerning matters of public interest. All council meetings are open to the public. Members may address the council in Cantonese, English or Putonghua. Members of the public can listen in any of these three languages in simultaneous interpretation and also watch the simultaneous sign language interpretation. The proceedings are recorded verbatim in the Official Record of Proceedings of the Legislative Council.

During the 2018-19 legislative session from October 2018 to July 2019, the council held 36 meetings, three of which were the Chief Executive's question and answer sessions and seven the Chief Executive's question times. Members asked 120 oral questions on the government's work with 631 supplementary questions, and another 422 written questions. The council passed 17 bills. It also passed 10 motions moved by the government under the positive vetting procedure to seek the council's approval to either make or amend subsidiary legislation. On subsidiary legislation subject to the negative vetting procedure, the council finished scrutinising

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Of the six vacancies in the membership of the Sixth Legislative Council arising from the judgments of the Court of First Instance of the High Court that six elected members were disqualified from assuming office on 12 October 2016, five vacancies were filled following by-elections held on 11 March and 25 November 2018. Pursuant to the Court of First Instance's judgments on two election petitions on 2 and 13 September 2019 and the determination made by the Appeal Committee of the Court of Final Appeal on 17 December 2019, two elected members were not duly elected in the 2018 by-elections and vacated their office on 17 December 2019.

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