Universal suffrage means voting rights for people, not 'functions'

Tsang Yok-sing ('Equality test', January 15) and Peter Lok ('Direct elections not the only way to achieve universal suffrage', January 16), are wrong to assert that functional constituencies should have a role in our legislature and that they fit with universal suffrage.

The human principle underlying universal suffrage cannot allow companies to elect legislators.

Even if the reforms of former governor Chris Patten were reintroduced to let only people vote, not companies, fair allocation of voting power is problematic.

The oddity of making a social services vote worth 60 per cent of a hotel employee's vote or six times a fisherman's is obvious.

If you grant votes in the legislature to economic groupings, you multiply the power of economic factors in society.

When we vote individually, we each balance the weight we give to economics, to culture, to education or aesthetics.

'Functions' do not deserve a voting privilege that we refuse to grant other social characteristics (parenthood?). For society, business is not a means unto itself, but should help generate a happier and more prosperous society.