Legislators told to reply

A PRO-DEMOCRACY group yesterday accused legislators of lacking public accountability after more than half failed to respond to a questionnaire on political reform.

Chan Hung, a spokesman for the Joint Association of People's Organisations for the Promotion of Democratic Government, said his group had sent a questionnaire to all legislators last month asking how they planned to vote on Governor Chris Patten's political reform bill.

After three weeks, however, only 23 out of 59 legislators who were sent a copy had returned the questionnaire, Mr Chan said.

Most of those who responded were directly elected legislators, he said.

Eighty per cent of the 21 functional constituency legislators and 90 per cent of the 17 appointed members had failed to return the questionnaire, Mr Chan said.

''Legislators should be accountable to the public, especially on important issues like the political reform bill.