My Take | Western-style democratic gridlock hits Hong Kong's Legislative Council

Tit for tat. Pan-democratic legislators threaten total non-cooperation. The government returns the favour. Sadly, we are all losers in this tug of war.

As public opinion turns against the Occupy movement, the pan-dems realise a scorched earth policy in the legislature may provoke a public backlash. So they turn around and put the government on the spot.

The Civic Party's Alan Leong Kah-kit, who is also chairman of Legco's public works subcommittee, defied a decades-long convention of following the government's sequence of works items for funding approval and rearranged them to put only those pan-dems approve of - what they call non-controversial - at the top. The government retaliated by withdrawing those the pan-dems favour and keeping on the list only those it wanted to fast-track. Leong feigned outrage.

"It came as a shock," he said. "I didn't expect the administration to sabotage my ruling." He said the government action amounted to "executive dictatorship".

Well, while we are at it, perhaps we can call Leong's action "legislative hegemony". If a subcommittee chairman unilaterally overturns a government prerogative, you can hardly expect officials to roll over and play dead. What would it mean to allow Leong to set such a precedent? Any grouping of lawmakers, pan-democratic or not, could potentially upend government priorities and projects. This is surely an encroachment by lawmakers on executive functions.

Also, lawmakers outside of the pan-democratic camp might support items the pan-dems disapprove of. They might endorse funding for "controversial" items like the Liantang-Heung Yuen Wai border crossing or a basement for the West Kowloon arts hub. Leong's ruling surely does not represent such people.