Legislative Council records anonymity related to lack of resources in the Secretariat Tian Beichen: How hard is it to add a name?

The new term, the seventh Legislative Council formed after improving the electoral system, has been in operation for exactly one full year since January last year. No matter whether the government bills of the Legislative Council meetings or the meetings of the Finance Committee involve hundreds of millions of public funds, and even affairs Most of the committee’s non-binding votes were by secret ballot. When I searched the meeting minutes at the end of the year, I found that the meeting minutes of the panel only included summaries of speeches, and did not record the names of the members who spoke. "Expression.

As far as members of the Legislative Council understand, it is related to the resource issue of the Legislative Council secretariat. Since the number of legislators in this term has increased by 20 to 90 members, the resources of the secretariat have not increased proportionally. The verbatim record method can complete the minutes of the meeting faster. This practice will not damage the accountability of the Legislative Council, because the meetings are open and videos are uploaded, and the public can still check the record of each member's speech.

However, what is the relationship between verbatim meeting minutes and anonymous summaries, with or without the names of Members, and resources?

The Legislative Council Secretariat did not respond positively.

The legislative year of the current Legislative Council is different from the previous ones, which started in October each year, and the first meeting will be held on January 12, 2022.

For the Legislative Council meeting held on Wednesday, the meeting minutes from January to December all included the names of members and the content of their speeches. However, the meeting minutes of panel committees were not uploaded, and even if they were, it was found that the meetings as early as the first half of the year were not included The content of the speech is named, and it is only a summary.

Since the anonymous meeting minutes "worked well", why have they become the subject of media commentary boards and even editorials in recent months?

This stems from the fact that Lin Miaoyin, a senior media person, wrote a newspaper column on the 12th of this month, entitled "The Most Active Speaker: "One"", mentioning that she recently checked the minutes of the two meetings of the Transportation Committee and the Housing Affairs Committee, " I found that the wording has changed. When summarizing opinions, the name of the member is no longer mentioned, but "a member said...", "a few members asked...", "some members noticed...", who is the "one"?『 Who are some of them? You have to refer to the attached table at the end of the article, which will list a certain congressman speaking on a certain topic at a certain moment, and look through the video according to this clue to find the specific views of the congressman.”

After the column was published, the media began to follow up on the wording of "one member". It turned out that the Legislative Council Secretariat began to optimize the preparation of committee meeting minutes from this session.

Even Jing Haihou, a well-known mainland blogger, wrote an article on the 20th of this month, noting that the minutes of the Legislative Council replaced the full name of a member with "a member" or "a member", pointing out that "the perception is really bad", and the public would feel that This is the Legislative Council's reduction of transparency, and the anti-China chaos in Hong Kong will feel that this is turning back the wheel of history. "If there is no special reason, why should the Legislative Council do this?"

Jing Haihou believes that anonymous meeting minutes may cause six negative effects:

1. It is unfair to those who actively speak;

2. It violates the spirit of encouraging

responsibility

;

Accountability;

5. Can't promote members to strengthen each other;

6. Make the members who are dawdling more comfortable.

Many members of parliament believe that signing is necessary

Jiang Yuhuan, a member of the Legislative Council of the Election Committee, also wrote an article in the newspaper today. When she was interviewed, she expressed that she hoped and believed that the Secretariat would hear these voices. We have given them some space. This approach can allow the public to better understand the work of the Council .

Tian Beichen, member of the Legislative Council of Northwest New Territories, also agrees with signing the record. "Intuitively, theoretically, it is not difficult to add a name. I don't understand the resource problem of the Secretariat. Maybe they can persuade me, but I don't know how difficult it is for the time being."

Di Zhiyuan, a member of the Legislative Council of the social welfare sector who has followed up the incident, said, "The secretariat said that the workload is not enough, we have to explain it in detail, and we have asked colleagues to try out a new arrangement. See if there is any trouble. In terms of the impact on the transparency of the public, etc., I will talk to the Secretariat after I have experience to see if there are any problems.”

Legislative Council Records Unnamed Controversial Political Parties Disagreement Di Zhiyuan: Staff Tests Have Been Arranged

Legislative Council Secretariat: Optimizing the Preparation of Meeting Minutes

In response to inquiries, the Legislative Council Secretariat stated that starting from the current term of the Legislative Council, the method of preparing the meeting minutes of the Legislative Council committees has been optimized to simplify and integrate the key points of the speeches of the participants, so that the public, members of parliament and officials can more easily grasp the results of the meeting Process, Discussion Points and Responses.

The Secretariat pointed out that public meetings of the Legislative Council and its committees are broadcast live and broadcast on the Legislative Council website.

The video recording of the meeting will also be uploaded to the website of the Legislative Council, and the public can review the speeches of each Member and the responses of officials at any time.

In the optimized meeting minutes, an appendix is ​​added, which contains the time stamp of each participant's speech, so that the public can watch the speeches of individual members or officials when necessary.

On October 19, Li Jiachao read his first "Policy Address" in the Legislative Council.

(Photo by Xia Jialang)

Journalists Association: Difficult to Monitor Parliament

The Hong Kong Journalists Association issued a statement on the 17th of this month, arguing that the concealment of the names of speaking members hinders the media from reporting on the situation in the parliament, and it is difficult to fulfill the "fourth right" to assist the public in monitoring the government and the operation of the parliament.

The Association of Journalists pointed out that speeches made by councilors at the meeting directly reflect their work performance. Omitting the names of the speaking councilors will increase the difficulty for the public to identify the speaking councilors.

As for the view of the member's statement from the video, the Journalists Association believes that this will shift the responsibility of ensuring the transparency of the Legislative Council information to the public and the media, hinder the flow of information, and increase the difficulty for journalists to interview and verify the identity of the speaking member. It is very unsatisfactory for the public and the media to immediately learn about the incident from the relevant Members.

The Journalists Association urges the Legislative Council Secretariat to return to past practices and ensure that the public's right to know and freedom of the press are protected.

Anonymity of Legislative Council Records Causes Differing Opinions of Controversial Political Parties Transfer the responsibility for information transparency to the public. The demonstration area will not be reopened within two years.

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