Marathon debate as legco has last word
Detractors often deride it as a talking shop, and as the Legislative Council building prepares to take its final bow as the crucible of Hong Kong's political discourse, it looks like they're about to get more ammunition for their argument.
Home to many a concentration-sapping debate over the years, Legco is going to finish as it started and stage a marathon talk-fest in the last session before the city's politicians move down the road to the Tamar site.
The last regular Legco meeting before its summer recess is expected to run for three days as lawmakers get their teeth into the last chief executive question-and-answer session, at least six debates, a bill awaiting passage and a long queue of year-ending reports from panels and committees.
Democratic Party legislator Emily Lau Wai-hing will table a motion to appoint a select committee to investigate allegations made by government former IT chief Jeremy Godfrey over the award of a HK$220 million contract.
Lau is also expected to move a motion to say 'goodbye' to the Legco building. Lawmakers will start work in the new Legislative Council complex at the Tamar site after this legislative session.
Completed in 1912, the building housed the city's Supreme Court until 26 years ago when it was turned into the Legislative Council building. It was declared a monument in 1984.
The committee on members' interests will raise a motion to admonish Abraham Razack for failing to declare he was a non-executive director of the MTR Corporation during discussions on the express rail link to Guangdong.
The public accounts committee is tabling a motion to discuss its strongly worded report on the financial debacle of the East Asian Games, in which the Home Affairs Bureau was criticised for its 'appalling' handling of the 2009 event.
There will also be debate on two regular non-binding members' motions on harbourfront planning and management and improving public medical services. The chairmen of the various panels will take at least two hours to give their annual progress reports.
A bill on the University of Hong Kong - to be tabled for second reading debate and third reading - will vbe the last of this legislative session.
That will leave the administration with 18 outstanding bills to be completed in the next session - the last of the four-year legislative term - including the embattled competition bill.
House committee vice-chairman Fred Li Wah-ming said the next legislative session would also be a busy one.
The last meeting in the present Legco building - like most of the meetings it has hosted - will not be without protest.
Radical pan-democratic People Power has vowed to mobilise 3,000 citizens to besiege the Legco building next Wednesday, to call for the resignation of Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung.
The organisers say Lam has to step down for his handling of the controversial bill to scrap Legco by-elections.
1985
The year in which the Supreme Court became home to the Legislative Council. It will now revert to use as the Court of Final Appeal
