This new year may be about Hongkongers' awakening to the importance of the environment, good town planning and preserving our heritage. But how in-touch is our government?
On Christmas Eve, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen made an attempt to allay the public outcry over the government's demolition of the Star Ferry clock tower and the imminent demolition of Queen's Pier. He noted that the proper public consultations had been held, and all legal procedures followed.
But was he correct?
The piers are being demolished to make way for the third phase of the Central reclamation scheme.
Public consultations were indeed held. But the government misinformed the public on the legal requirements for justifying the reclamation. A 2004 Court of Final Appeal decision established that the government had been using the wrong legal interpretation. That meant it had misled the public and the Town Planning Board on the proper test to be applied.
The government justified the reclamation on the basis that it provided public benefits. But the court prescribed a very different test: the government must establish that there was an 'overriding public need' for the project, it ruled.