As the Legislative Council heads into its last session before elections in September next year, its least active lawmakers have failed to show any sign of revival from their torpor.
Timothy Fok Tsun-ting remained the most reluctant lawmaker in the legislative year just ended. Fok, who has represented the sports, performing arts, culture and publications functional constituency since 1998, had the worst attendance and one of the worst voting records of the 60 lawmakers. While that echoes his previous record in analyses conducted by the South China Morning Post, his participation on some panels has shown further deterioration.
Fok topped the absentee list for full council meetings for the sixth consecutive year: he attended 22 of its 35 meetings, or 64 per cent, compared to the 96 per cent attendance average of Legco members.
The Legco session that ended on July 13 also marked the ninth year of his 13 as a lawmaker in which Fok had the worst attendance. He also missed or failed to vote in 122, or 65 per cent, of the 187 votes cast in full council meetings in the past year, compared with the average of 25.4 per cent.
The member who lodged the fewest votes was finance sector lawmaker David Li Kwok-po, who missed 90.3 per cent of votes. Medical sector representative Dr Leung Ka-lau was next, at 66.3 per cent.
Fok's poor performance was consistent across chamber business. He had the lowest attendance on five of the nine major panels and committees he joined. He attended fewer than a third of the 32 meetings of the House Committee, on which all lawmakers except the Legco president sit - a slight deterioration on his performance the previous year.