Workable mechanism needed to keep the city’s leader in check

As her current term enters its final year, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is under pressure to make good a series of outstanding election promises. However, her pledge to extend the colonial bribery law to cover herself is certain to be a political bad debt, as the city’s chief executive flagrantly writes it off from her remaining to-do list. She even appealed to her successors not to extend the law in the future, saying such a move would undermine what she called the “constitutional status” of the leader.

The pledge four years ago to “resolve as soon as possible the constitutional and legal issues” for amending the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance was, indeed, top of Lam’s manifesto. Section 3 bans officials from soliciting or accepting any advantage without the chief executive’s approval; while Section 8 prohibits anyone from offering any advantage to a public servant in relation to his official dealings. But the provisions do not cover the chief executive, as was the case with the British governor during the colonial era.

To be fair, the legal vacuum has been a sticky issue for years. Lam took it up after her predecessor failed to tighten the law in the wake of a misconduct scandal involving former chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen in 2012. She had already washed her hands of it when pressed on the progress last year, saying it was so complex that perhaps future leaders would have “brighter ideas” to settle it. Last week, she went further to say that no chief executive should handle the matter. The past 20-odd years had already seen new laws that undermined the leader’s position, she said.

Going back on one’s election promises is shameful, though not uncommon. But few politicians would seek to pre-empt successors from fulfilling what they fail to deliver, especially on a matter of grave public interest. Lam argued that her status transcended the executive, legislative and judicial branches and could not be bound by too many rules that may compromise her accountability to Beijing and Hong Kong. We trust the former government No 2 was fully aware of this and had no intention to weaken the constitutional position herself when she made the pledge. The former chief justice was certainly not trying to do so when the committee he headed in the wake of Donald Tsang’s scandal recommended the change.

The principle that no one is above the law is fundamental to the rule of law and must be seen to be upheld at all times. The recent fiasco in which three top officials flouted Covid-19 restrictions to attend an expensive hotpot dinner hosted by a mainland corporation has already undermined the image of a clean government. Lam sought to calm fears, saying Beijing would not tolerate a corrupt chief executive anyway. Better still, she should try to work out a framework with the central government to strengthen public confidence.