MR CHAN KIN-POR (in Cantonese): Deputy President, I support this motion proposed to amend the Rules of Procedure (“RoP”).
For many years, the opposition had taken advantage of the loopholes in RoP to filibuster in the Legislative Council with the objectives of obstructing the administration of the Government, attacking pro-establishment Members and gaining political benefits. These loopholes have become a tool for political struggles.
Some people have asked why there are so many loopholes in RoP. The reason is simple. The existing RoP is inherited from the Legislative Council in the British-Hong Kong era when most of the Members were gentlemen who abided by the rules and in fact, back in those years nobody would dare to oppose the British-Hong Kong Government in such a way. Therefore, RoP were meant to guard against only the gentlemen but not the villains. So they did not need to be too specific, and the President would make a ruling in the event that a problem arose. For many years after the handover of sovereignty, the opposition had kept exploiting the loopholes of RoP and even distorted RoP, doing many ridiculous things and becoming more and more radical. They went so far as to paralyse the Legislative Council and finally even resorted to hurl “stink bombs”. Today, as a result of these developments, we have no alternative but to amend RoP in order to plug these loopholes.
Deputy President, I support the amendments proposed to various rules today, including the attire of Members attending meetings. In places all over the world, officials and Members of parliamentary assemblies dress decently and appropriately when attending meetings. This is to show respect for the occasion and has a bearing on the overall image of the parliamentary assembly. It is a basic courtesy that actually does not need to be written in RoP, for Members should know what to do. However, in recent years, Members’ attire has been really quite free and casual. Some of them may wish to express their spirit of defiance or to express their class and position, or they wish to attract attention. But these behaviours have in one way or another tarnished the solemnity of this Council and are extremely disrespectful to this Council and also to other people attending the meeting. Since there are people who do not know how to respect themselves, we have no alternative but to set out the attire requirement as if writing down a school rule.
Moreover, this Council has also proposed a specific mechanism to impose restrictions on the number of members of Panels and Bills Committees and also the method of their formation in the future. In fact, the next term of the Legislative Council will have 90 Members, and imposing a limit on the number of members of some committees is the only alternative when nothing else can be done. While these proposals made this time around have their pros and cons, they are the results of discussions by Members and are, therefore, worthy of support.
Having said that, I personally think some flexibility should be allowed in the implementation of the mechanism, and there should be some tacit understanding among Members for coordination to be made. It is because some Members do need to join Panels that are related to their sectors or main duties. For example, the Panel on Financial Affairs has at least three major components, namely, the banking industry, financial services industry and insurance industry. If the Members concerned cannot join the Panel, and imagine if Mr CHAN Chun-ying of the finance industry and Mr Christopher CHEUNG of the financial services industry are not members of the Panel on Financial Affairs, that may not be the best arrangement.
Besides, the Panels on Manpower, Commerce and Industry, Economic Development, and Development, also have similar situation. Of course, each Panel can have a maximum of 20 members and theoretically this should be enough for allocation. Some people may think that my worries are unwarranted but we cannot completely rule out the possibility that extreme situations may arise. Therefore, I think when the mechanism is implemented in the future, there should be coordination for the participation of the relevant Members as far as possible.
The Legislative Council used to have abundant room for policy discussions but as the opposition camp had never ceased to cause damages, we are now forced to tighten RoP, as in the case of the Hong Kong National Security Law which would not have been promulgated had there not been “black-clad violence” and collusion with foreign forces. All these developments were being forced to take place. I hope that Members can cherish the existing latitude. If there are continuous attempts to exploit the loopholes and wreak havoc, I am afraid that the latitude that we now have will only become narrower and narrower.
Thank you, Deputy President.