Why Hong Kong’s legislature is a world-class circus, run by clowns

One of our targets in the early days of InvestHK was Cirque du Soleil, the famous Canadian entertainment company. I still remember a very cold visit to Montreal where we attempted to persuade senior executives to make Hong Kong their main base in Asia. Alas, they chose Macau, our sister SAR across the Pearl River estuary, no doubt attracted by subsidies from the casinos. Win some, lose some, at least they are in a nearby part of China.

After the events of recent months, I think we can now say with some confidence that Hong Kong has created its own world-class circus, known locally as the Legislative Council. There are two main reasons why the situation has descended into farce: the Hong Kong government has launched a concerted attack on the concept of separation of powers; and the central government’s liaison office is acting in flagrant breach of the Basic Law.

Brouhaha over oath-taking is undermining legislative process

It is highly unusual for the executive to interfere directly with the legislature at all, let alone at the outset. Those assessments are for the voters to make, not civil servants. It may be acceptable for officials to point out certain points of principle so that the electorate can draw their own conclusions about the suitability of some candidates. And it is certainly acceptable for rival candidates to make the same points forcefully. But for officials to disqualify some people altogether on the basis of political judgements is highly dubious. It is Legco’s job to monitor the administration, not vice versa.

We also need to be clear that this was not a spontaneous exercise of traditional powers. This was a coordinated effort, for the first time, to make sure certain candidates did not get their names onto the ballot paper. The matter is now subject to legal challenge.

No doubt the returning officers concerned will be called to give evidence under oath as to what written and oral briefing they were given prior to their exercise of the powers, and the person who gave the oral briefing may well be subpoenaed to clarify whether he gave advice on generalities or named specific candidates. In due course, a member of the judiciary will tell us whether the powers exercised actually existed and were used appropriately.