MR CHAN KIN-POR (in Cantonese): President, since the Occupy Central movement, the “mutual destruction camp” waged a “filibuster battle” by taking advantage of the loopholes in the Rules of Procedure (“RoP”), which had rendered the Legislative Council in a semi-paralysed state on many occasions, and brought down legislative work for the purpose of dragging down the Government so that Hong Kong would fall into the trap of “mutual destruction”. Their filibuster reached its zenith in 2019 with the behaviour of the “mutual destruction-camp” Members getting more violent and radical. It had become common to see them charge at security staff. They even resorted to throwing rotten eggs. How ridiculous. According to statistics, from 2016 to 2020, their filibustering tactics included abusing the procedure by calling quorum counts for over 500 times, causing the abortion of 17 meetings with at least 14 bills being delayed.
In fact, in order to suppress the wave of filibuster, the amendments to 24 items in RoP moved by pro-establishment Members were passed by the Legislative Council in 2017, and two items in the Finance Committee Procedure were also amended in 2018, for the purpose of narrowing down the room for filibustering. The “mutual destruction camp” showed some restraint at the beginning, but very soon, they racked their brains to come up with different filibustering tactics. The most classic one was their obstruction of the election of the Chairman of the House Committee (“HC”). Since the original HC Chairman, Ms Starry LEE, ran for election, according to RoP, the then HC Deputy Chairman, Mr Dennis KWOK, should preside over HC meetings. Yet, he chaired the meetings in his very special ways in order to delay the election, such as not setting any limit on the time and scope of members’ speeches. As a result, HC still failed to elect its Chairman after seven months. That was unprecedented.
Eventually, the President stepped in by specifying me as the member presiding at the HC meeting after seeking legal advice. I also thank him for specifying that we should proceed straight to balloting and should not hear points of order. The new HC Chairman was successfully elected in the end. In fact, in my memory, it was very chaotic and violent on that day. The meeting was scheduled for 2:30 pm. The door of the conference room was usually opened at 2:00 pm, and I was already sitting on the Chairman’s seat by then. A group of Members stormed in and shouted at me with abusive and humiliating words. As Chairman, I could not turn on the microphone to refute them. I could only put up with them. But I do not think I was the one who suffered the most, the security staff were, as they had to physically confront some Members who messed around in front of … the security staff who had to resist their charge. It was even harder for female security staff. In the past few years and in this incident, talking about the storming of the Council, people who suffered the most were the Secretary General, Legal Advisers and colleagues of the Legislative Council Secretariat for they faced very unreasonable accusations or even personal attacks. The security staff were even more helpless as they were directly confronted by those Members. So I think their professionalism in handling chaos in these few years is worthy of commendation.
After discussion among colleagues, the Committee on Rules of Procedure proposes eight amendments, five of them involve RoP which are going to be considered and voted on today, and three involve the House Rules (“HP”). The five amendments under discussion today include suspending Members with grossly disorderly conduct from service and deducting their remuneration during the suspension period; specifying time limits on debates in the Council and adjusting the length of Members’ speeches; granting the chairman/deputy chairman in office all the powers that may be exercised by the chairman/deputy chairman of the committee concerned until the chairman for the next session is elected; fine-tuning the procedure for the adjournment of debate in the Council; and the fifth one, introducing amendments to prevent possible abuse of procedures.
A “red card” system is also introduced in the proposed amendments. If the President is of the opinion that his powers under Rule 45(2) (Order in Council and Committee) are inadequate with respect to the grossly disorderly conduct of a member, the President may name such Member. The President’s deputy may then move a motion that should be voted on forthwith without amendment or debate. Should the motion be passed, the concerned Member will be suspended from service. The duration of the suspension is one week on first occasion and will be extended gradually on subsequent occasions. His/her remuneration will also be withheld during the suspension period. This amendment sounds harsh, but I deem it necessary. I have presided over Finance Committee meetings for many years and have been subject to unreasonable attacks for many times. As Chairman, there is nothing I can do about it. I can tolerate personal humiliation, but such behaviour has interfered with the work of different meetings. We can see that Hong Kong really lagged behind other places in the past few years owing to the disruption in the Council. Members wanted to raise many issues but they did not dare to do so. While submission of proposals to the Legislative Council was a big deal, Members did not even dare to raise issues at that time. The fact that Hong Kong is moving backward, or even not able to move forward, has much to do with such behaviour.
Why did they dare to charge at the President Podium? Because we did not enforce the Legislative Council (Powers and Privileges) Ordinance seriously in the past, and RoP was actually a toothless tiger. Even if Members had grossly disorderly conduct, they would only be ordered to leave the Chamber at most, and they could attend the meeting again the next day. It was even more ridiculous before when Members could go back to the meetings several times within a day. The Council did not impose much punishment on Members. On the contrary, after extensive media coverage on their behaviour in the Council, they were treated as heroes. Seeing that they take more than they give, more and more Members followed suit, and their behaviour got more and more violent. It was the system that made them do so. Now that with the “red card” and remuneration deduction system, I believe that the deterrent effect will be greater.
Another area of concern is adjusting the length of Members’ speeches. We all know that the President can set the time limit to four hours in maximum for speeches, and 1.5 hours for the adjournment of the Council. In respect of the speaking time of each Member on motions, the amended one will be shorter. Some Members find it too short as they fear that they may not have enough time to speak. I think we have to speak more concisely in the future. In fact, we very often do not need 10-odd minutes to make a speech. If Members can speak for 2 to 3 minutes to deliver the same effect as a 10-minute speech, it will draw more attention as people’s attention span is very short. Three minutes is very long already. If you speak for over 10 minutes, who would listen to you attentively? I think a concise speech lasting a few minutes will be more effective. On the other hand, I believe that the President will exercise his discretion as appropriate. When we discuss complicated issues, the speaking time may not be enough. I believe that the President will handle it flexibly by discretion. From a practical point of view, shortening the speaking time is inevitable given that the number of Legislative Council Members will increase to 90.
President, RoP of the Legislative Council has generally been following the one used by the British Hong Kong Legislative Council with some amendments over the time. Back then, Members were all well-behaved because appointment system was adopted. If they made a mess in the Council, they would not be appointed again. So, RoP and HR were simply “gentlemen’s agreements” with relatively lenient provisions that all Members followed spontaneously. However, in the past few years, some Members proved in action that they would not respect RoP, so we must write down clearer rules to stop them from making use of the loopholes therein. What I say is in fact very sad because the best way is for Members to exercise self-control. However, if we do not tighten the rules, they may make use of the loopholes and abuse the rules concerned as much as possible, which will harm the Council, all colleagues and Hong Kong. In my opinion, we have the responsibility to plug the loopholes in RoP and it is also necessary to do it, so, I support this Motion. Thank you, President.