The Democratic Party has categorically ruled out joining the Selection Committee that will set up the provisional legislature.
Its standing committee met yesterday to discuss the indirect invitation by Preparatory Committee chairman Qian Qichen to help set up the Special Administrative Region.
It decided that members would not join the Selection Committee, whose tasks are to choose the chief executive and appoint the provisional legislature - which Democrats claim is illegal.
A vice-chairman of the Preparatory Committee, Leung Chun-ying, said the Democrats, who hold 19 seats in the Legislative Council, would be failing their duty to voters if they refused to sit on the provisional legislature.
But party vice-chairman Dr Yeung Sum said the party could not allow its members to help set up something that ran counter to the Basic Law and the Joint Declaration.
'We will not consider joining the committee and then abstaining on the issue of the provisional legislature, because then the Democrats would still be involving themselves in the very process of forming an illegal body,' Dr Yeung said.
He praised Mr Qian's open attitude in inviting people of different views to discuss handover issues.
