Legal specialists among almost 60 to join battle for National People’s Congress seats
Hopefuls include many from the legal sector, as sources says Beijing hopes to strengthen influence in legal issues
Almost 60 people, some of them new faces from the legal sector, joined the race to elect 36 deputies to the National People’s Congress as nominations closed on Monday.
Sources in the pro-establishment camp had said that Beijing hoped to have more local deputies with such backgrounds to strengthen its influence in legal issues in the city.
The development came weeks after Li Fei, the Basic Law Committee chairman, reignited the debate over whether Hong Kong should speed up its pace in enacting national security legislation. A move to pass a law was shelved in 2003 after half a million people protested, fearing for their liberty.
At least four of the hopefuls were from the legal sector: former Law Society chairman Ambrose Lam San-keung; current council member of the Law Society Nick Chan Hiu-fung; an opponent of the 2014 Occupy Central movement, Maggie Chan Man-ki; and a legal adviser of the pro-Beijing Federation of Trade Unions, Zhan Meiqing.
Hong Kong government should take two years before starting controversial national security legislation, says former minister
The spotlight was also on another newcomer, Raymond Tam Chi-yuen, the former minister in charge of the city’s mainland affairs. He had echoed calls by incumbent deputies, including Cheng Yiu-tong and Stanley Ng Chau-pei, that the government should push to enact national security law within the next five years.
Tam Yiu-chung, a former chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, also entered the race. He is tipped to replace the retiring Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai as the sole local delegate to the NPC Standing Committee, which holds the power to interpret the Basic Law.