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Two Sessions | The Legislative Council's 20-member bill is passed, and the threshold for political reform has changed significantly

2021-03-05T23:16:41.130Z


The National People's Congress will review the "Decision of the National People's Congress on Improving the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's Electoral System (Draft)", and the composition of the Legislative Council and the electoral system will undergo major changes. Move the whole body, new


Political situation

Written by: Sha Banshan

2021-03-06 07:00

Last update date: 2021-03-06 07:00

The National People's Congress will review the "Decision of the National People's Congress on Improving the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's Electoral System (Draft)", and the composition of the Legislative Council and the electoral system will undergo major changes.

As soon as the whole body is involved, the newly formed Legislative Council will have a lot of changes, ranging from seating arrangements to the threshold of political reform, all different from the past.

After the number of seats in the Legislative Council increases from 70 to 90, the threshold for group voting on motions, bills, and amendments proposed by members will definitely change.

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At present, the counting of votes in groups requires more than half of both groups to pass. There must be changes

Taking the current Legislative Council as an example, there are 35 directly elected and functional constituencies each, making a total of 70 seats. Under the group counting system, motions, bills, and amendments proposed by members must have a majority vote in the two groups before they can be passed. .

In the past, the Panmins had a majority of directly elected seats, and they could veto the resolutions under the division of votes. However, since the Liangyou DQ incident and the by-election, Panmins have lost their advantage, and the establishment has more than half of the direct elections and functional constituencies.

After this change, the Legislative Council will be divided into three parts: direct elections, functional constituencies, and election committees. Under the division of votes, in theory, it is necessary for all three groups to have a majority before the motions proposed by members can be passed.

However, if the rumors that external direct elections will reduce seats are true, it means that as long as they get fewer seats than before, they can have a majority in the directly elected group. If the Panmins can regain more than half of the seats in future direct elections, they can also regain the veto. .

However, there are other ways to stifle this possibility, such as combining direct elections with another group, that is, returning to the initial method of combining direct elections with the election committee, or only counting two of the three groups. Make the influence of directly elected members "zero."

The threshold for political reform will be set at 60 people, 31 people will be needed to veto political reform

Other rules for "counting heads" in the Legislative Council are also about to change. For example, in the "Rules of Procedure", the quorum of all committees of the Legislative Council is 20. After the total number is expanded to 90, the quorum is only 20. I believe there is also some discussion about whether there are enough people.

As for the political reform threshold that the outside world is concerned about, in the past, the threshold for two-thirds of all members was 47, which means that the threshold for veto was 24. Under the new legislative council’s 90 members, the threshold for two-thirds to pass was 60, and the threshold was vetoed. The threshold is 31 people, and a large increase in the number of establishment seats means that political reforms will be easier to pass.

Legislative Council website: Chamber can hold 120 members

Many people are also concerned about the more practical impact, that is, if there are a sudden increase of 20 seats, will the council become too crowded?

Is the location of the office adequate?

According to the Legislative Council's website, the original conference hall can be expanded to accommodate 120 members. "The conference hall is the heart of the Legislative Council Building. The conference hall is located on the first floor of the Legislative Council Building and covers an area of ​​800 square meters. It is used by legislators to formulate laws and discuss discussions. A meeting place for public concerns. During the session, the Legislative Council usually holds meetings at 11 am on Wednesday in the Chamber. To meet the needs of the future development of the Legislative Council, the seats in the Chamber can be expanded to accommodate 120 members."

Members' offices can be used to make major changes to reorganize the interval

The issue of the parliamentarian's office may require more changes.

The Legislative Council Complex has 10 floors, the fifth floor is where members rest, and the 6th to 10th floors are members' offices.

Before the democrats were resigned by the DQ and the president, the rooms on the 6th to 10th floors were basically allocated to members. Members and party members generally chose the same floor as office. For example, the 6th floor is mainly for DAB members and the 8th floor is for citizens. For the Party and the New Democratic Party, the 9th floor is dominated by Democratic Party members. Some political parties and members will "open up" the office to facilitate work.

With the substantial increase in seats, it is currently unknown whether the Legislative Council has enough offices allocated to all members, or major changes may be needed to meet the actual needs of the new Legislative Council.

Two Sessions‧Full Text|Hong Kong's electoral system is facing major reforms Wang Chen: The Basic Law needs to be revised

Two sessions | Proposed amendments to the Basic Law Annex I and Lam Cheng said that it is urgent: go all out to help the amendment

Two sessions | The establishment quickly responded to support the improvement of the election system Tung Chee-hwa: Hong Kong cannot be reformed

Two sessions | Adjournment of the Legislative Council elections?

Liu Zhaojia said the opportunity is great: the election committee must be elected first

Two Sessions | Wang Chen: Improving the election system for the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council involves amending Annexes 1 and 2 of the Basic Law

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Legislative Council Two Sessions 2021 Two Sessions

Source: hk1

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