Can the conflict between a fully directly elected Legislative Council and the steady progress required by the Basic Law be avoided? The message conveyed by the National People's Congress was that any changes made in 2008 must comply with a requirement to protect the equal balance between the directly elected seats and functional constituency seats, and to maintain Legco's separate voting system.
This indicates a clear desire, for the time being, for the continued role of vocational or functional representatives. Is there a middle way, a means to compromise between the popular demand and the need for restraint, for the gradual and orderly progress called for by our national leaders?
When developing their democracies, many countries had to face a similar dilemma, to find a balance between a directly elected council and the interests of the community as a whole. The answer lay in having a representative system consisting of two chambers, which has been adopted by more than 50 nations.
There is no unanimity in the composition of the second chamber - there are representatives of federated states, appointed and vocational members, or even a mixed system. Each has been adapted to suit particular circumstances.
The response to the popular demand to have a fully directly elected Legco, we believe, lies in giving the directly elected members a separate status with a separate chamber, and to create a second chamber, a senate of the vocational representatives - the functional constituencies. To get through the work, the directly elected first chamber might need to be larger than the second and would be the first to consider government business and legislation.
Bills and motions passed in the first chamber would travel to the second for further and wider deliberation and, if necessary, to put forward amendments. The question would arise, undoubtedly, of how to deal with a lack of agreement between the two chambers.