When is it right for the majority view on Hong Kong political reform to prevail?
C.K. Yeung says while minority interests are rightly protected in a democracy through legislative and non-legislative means, they should, however, not override the majority view after due process
When is the triumph of a majority view a tyranny and when is it democracy? This question is as pertinent in today's Hong Kong as when Plato raised it more than 2,000 years ago.
Some pan-democratic legislators have vowed to vote against what they dismissed as the "fake" universal suffrage laid down by the National People's Congress, regardless of whether a majority of people wished to "pocket it first". If the majority view is validated by sophisticated opinion polls, is this blatant defiance of majority view morally defensible?
Assuming that 60 per cent of eligible voters favour pocketing the political reform package, with 40 per cent against it, what should the 27 pan-democratic legislators do? As elected representatives, they should heed the majority view of the electorate. But their political survival depends on the votes from their supporters. As the 40 per cent against the "pocket it first" voters are these 27 legislators' power base, they face being dumped by their supporters in the next Legislative Council election if they follow the mainstream majority view. Such a move would require a moral courage that goes against their political survival instinct.
But democracy is not simply about following the views of the majority. In the best tradition of representative government, here in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the West, elected representatives are custodians of the trust of their constituents, who expect them to exercise their best judgment and follow the dictates of their conscience in performing their duties.
The average voter has neither the time nor the knowledge to make the choice that is in the best interest of the people. Legislators should lead, not just follow, their electoral supporters.
Ever since the birth of democracy, a major worry in any democratic system is what John Adams, back in 1788, memorably called "the tyranny of the majority". He was rightly worried that the majority will trample on the interests of the minority, which includes the disadvantaged, as well as racial and sexual minorities. This is what Plato means by his famous dictum that "dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy".
The evolution of a democratic system is a progressive building up of checks and balances to protect the interests of the minority against potential abuses by the majority. As the smallest "minority" is the individual, human rights legislation is installed to safeguard the rights of this smallest entity. Even if all five million voters in Hong Kong want to, say, send a public enemy No 1 to jail, they can't do it as long as their enemy is innocent under the law. This is the cornerstone of liberty.