Hong Kong Constitutional Development Task Force Issues Proposals for Reform

The Hong Kong SAR's Constitutional Development Task Force issued its fifth report on October 19. The report contains a package of proposals on methods for selecting the Chief Executive in 2007 and for forming the Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2008. Among these proposals, the report calls for doubling the size of the Election Committee that chooses Hong Kong’s chief executive. The report proposes increasing the number of Election Committee members in the First, Second, and Third Sectors, which comprise professionals in industry, commerce, finance, labor, and social services, from 600 to 900. In addition, the report proposes increasing the number of members in the Fourth Sector, which comprises members of the LegCo, District Councils, Hong Kong deputies to the National People’s Congress, and others, from 200 to 700. The report also calls for adding 10 new seats to the 60-member LegCo, although the public would elect only five of the new members directly. District Councilors elected by the current group of 529 Councilors would fill the other five new seats. In a statement posted on the Hong Kong government Web site following the publication of the report, Chief Secretary for Administration Rafael Hui, who led the task force, explained that "although constitutional development in 2007-2008 will not take us immediately to the ultimate goal of universal suffrage, it is a substantive and significant step toward that goal."

Chief Executive Donald Tsang described the proposals as "a significant step forward in our democratic development," according to the transcript of a press conference posted on the Hong Kong government Web site following the release of the report. Tsang went on to say that "the SAR Government has left no stone unturned in formulating a package that embodies democracy and openness to the highest extent possible, and is consistent with the Basic Law and the Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress." In April 2004, the NPC Standing Committee issued a decision prohibiting the people of Hong Kong from electing either the chief executive in 2007 or the members of the LegCo in 2008 through universal suffrage. The decision also mandated that the one-to-one ratio of legislators directly elected by geographical constituencies to those elected by professional and business groups will not change in the 2008 election.

For the proposals to be implemented, a two-thirds majority in the LegCo must first approve them before the Hong Kong government may apply to the central government in Beijing to amend the relevant appendices of the Basic Law. According to an October 20 report in the Washington Post, 25 lawmakers in the LegCo have condemned the plan as inadequate and have vowed to block it. In its 2005 Annual Report the Commission expressed its strong support for the provisions of the Basic Law that provide for the chief executive and the entire legislature to be elected through universal suffrage.