Last sitting legislation in limbo

The fate of 27 items of legislation withdrawn by the Government during the last sitting of the legislative council remains undecided.

At the provisional body's house committee, vice-chairman Ip Kwok-him, of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, said that a meeting with Chief Secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang on Monday would decide whether those items should be introduced to the provisional legislature for scrutiny.

The bills were withdrawn because there was insufficient time for scrutiny with more than 100 bills waiting for passage at the last sitting.

It included 17 bills and 10 subsidiary items of legislation.

The most controversial of them was the subsidiary legislation relating to the Mandatory Provident Fund System and the Housing (Amendment)(No 2) Bill 1997, which would provide for fines to deter public housing tenants from making false declarations about their income and assets.

But independent Peggy Lam Pei Yu-dja said: 'We should be extremely careful because we can only deal with indispensable laws.