In the past two weeks, the Hong Kong people watching the transgressions of their Legislative Council have collectively experienced every functional adult's recurring nightmare: being stuck in a long, boring meeting that just won't end.
In response to the government's decision to push through a bill that would prohibit legislators from standing in a by-election within six months of resignation, the opposition forces have staged a particularly lethal variant of the filibuster, which resulted in over 1,000 amendments and many sleepless nights.
Critics derided the effort as a waste of public funds. One estimation puts the marginal cost each day at HK$1 million.
But people who have found themselves in similar situations know very well that the cost is hardly the primary objection. Time is. The optimist in all of us would like to think that legislators and civil servants alike have more meaningful use of their finite time than sitting through a dramatic interpretation of the bill performed at the speed and in the character of slow-talking Premier Wen Jiabao .
That is why most legislatures (though not ours) have procedures in place to end debate and, more importantly, proceed to a vote when such a motion is supported by a supermajority. Parliamentary rules are meant to facilitate deliberation by ensuring that the minority, despite its disadvantages numerically, will not be arbitrarily silenced. However, no one can reasonably claim unrestricted speaking time considering that the majority also has the right to make laws in an efficient and effective manner. After all, the legislature is a decision-making body.
In our case, filibustering has assumed a new form: the congestion mainly comes from the seemingly infinite number of trivial amendments, one for every possible scenario a member should be - in Albert Chan Wai-yip and Wong Yuk-man's opinion - exempted from the government's proposed policy. The two have truly refined the art of specificity, as no deadly disease or illiberal regime is deprived of its own clause.
Although the majority will has so far prevailed, with the amendments being rejected one by one, this situation is most certainly not a victory for our democracy. Activity that does not advance a bill and serves no purpose but to indefinitely delay voting prevents lawmakers from exercising their role as elected representatives of the people. The most crippling result of a filibuster is its obstruction to the legislative process.