Time spent on Legco filibustering doubles this year
The number of meeting adjournments due to a lack of quorum also increased fivefold, as House Committee chairman Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen came under fire on Friday after he said relations between the legislature and the administration had improved
The hours spent on quorum calls has doubled this legislative year, compared with the previous year, while the number of Legco meeting adjournments due to a lack of quorum increased fivefold.
The figures were released as House Committee chairman Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen came under fire on Friday after he said relations between the legislature and the administration had improved, with lawmakers from both sides of the political divide saying the situation had never been worse.
So far, lawmakers have spent around 108 hours on quorum counts, a tactic frequently employed to filibuster controversial government proposals, during the 2015-16 legislative year.
The figure stood at around 56 hours in the previous year.
As of the end of June, council meetings ended prematurely 11 times as not enough lawmakers were present, whereas this only happened twice the previous year.
Despite the trend, Leung said ties between the legislature and the administration had improved this year compared with the last three years.
“[This was the case] particularly after the government prioritised uncontroversial issues on the agenda,” he said as he summed up the works conducted by the House Committee this legislative year. “I think such communications can be done again in the future.”
Leung was referring to the agreement the government made with lawmakers to process livelihood-related and uncontroversial items first after Legco proceedings were hampered by protracted filibustering.
At the beginning of this legislative year, a long-held tradition of a pro-establishment and a pan-democratic lawmaker holding the House Committee’s chairmanship and vice-chairmanship respectively was broken when Ma Fung-kwok became Leung’s deputy.
Leung said “it would not be a bad thing” to return to the practice to improve communications.
New People’s Party lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee said she was surprised by Leung’s assessment.
“The relationship is actually I think the worst we have had in 19 years,” she said. “A record number of hours have been spent on meetings ... because of filibustering and much less work has been done than before.”
The Democratic Party’s Sin Chung-kai echoed Ip’s sentiment, saying that relations between the two sides is the worst he has seen in his entire political career.
He called on the administration to hold regular meetings with the pan-democrats to improve the situation.
