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SCMP Reporter

REBEL lawyers yesterday suffered a crushing defeat in elections for the Law Society council.

  The two rebel candidates from the Solicitors' Concern Group, Yolanda Fan Pui-lan and Thomas Tse Lin-chung, received 252 and 236 votes respectively - some 1,000 votes less than the winning candidates.

  Their allies, Susan Liang Pui Saw Kian and Guy Lam Kwok-hung, were also defeated, obtaining 322 and 148 votes.

   The nine candidates supported by the council leadership attracted between 1,300 and 1,400 votes, of which about 1,000 were proxy votes.

  The Law Society did not reveal exactly how many proxies were used in the election.

  Only 254 lawyers attended the annual general meeting at which the vote was taken.

  There were a total of 13 candidates standing for nine seats.

  Ms Fan said after the election that members of the society should think carefully whether the proxy system should continue to be used on major decisions such as election of the Law Society Council or on major policies such as the Court of Final Appeal bill.

  In January, the Law Society voted 858 to 746 in support of the Government's Court of Final Appeal bill which limited the number of foreign judges to one. Some 700 votes supporting the bill were proxies.

  The decision, backed by the Law Society Council, represented a major U-turn of the society's position. It had in 1991 rejected the limitation on the number of foreign judges.

  Ms Fan said the concern group would continue to press for the scrapping of the proxy system.

  'Though we failed to get inside, we will continue to make noise from the outside,' she said.

  Mr Lam said the council was simply barring people with different opinions by fielding its own candidates for all nine seats available.

  But Roderick Woo Bun, re-elected as society president, defended the proxy system, saying it enabled members to take part in the election, if they were unable to attend.

  Mr Woo attacked the losers for using the proxy system as an excuse for their defeat.

  'The result only showed that they did not have wide enough support within the profession,' he said.

  Mr Woo also fended off criticisms that the proxy systems allowed large law firms to dominate the election.

  Large law firms constituted only about 30 per cent of society members and they could not dictate the result.

  'I am not aware of any member complaining that he was pressurised to give his proxy vote to others,' he said.

  Besides Mr Woo, incumbent vice-president Patrick Sherrington was re-elected. Christopher Chan Cheuk was elected vice-president, replacing Tony Cheng.



Rebel lawyers defeated in Law Society election