Peering between television cameras and searching for a front seat in Legco's public gallery, US-based human rights campaigner John Kamm was eagerly awaiting an answer. He had raised a tricky legal question at a seminar last Saturday concerning Hong Kong's national security laws and Solicitor-General Robert Allcock, apparently caught off-guard, had promised to respond at the bills committee meeting yesterday. Mr Kamm was to face a longer wait than he had expected.
He first had to listen to a heated debate, lasting almost an hour, in which lawmakers discussed the vexing question of whether Legco's rules allowed a motion to be moved to rescind another motion which had already been passed.
Confused? Let me explain. The seminar on Saturday was not only attended by Mr Kamm and Mr Allcock, but also most of the democrat legislators opposing the government's bill. This meant they were not present at the bills committee meeting in Legco the same day.
In their absence, lawmakers supporting the government - and therefore the bill - took the opportunity to whiz through the onerous clause-by-clause examination of its contents in 7.5 hours. And for good measure, they passed a motion stating that this process was over and could not be reopened.
Yesterday, the democrats were back. And the first thing they wanted to do, of course, was to reopen the matter. Democrat James To Kun-sun proposed a new motion - stating that the one passed on Saturday be rescinded. Emily Lau Wai-hing, of The Frontier, then prompted the rules to be further considered when she suggested legislators should be more civilised and allow Saturday's debate to be reopened.
This upset Chinese Chamber of Commerce representative Philip Wong Yu-hong, who asked whether the term 'more civilised' was being used in a pejorative manner.