Occupy Central co-founder accused of ‘immoral’ plot in election for Hong Kong’s leader
Benny Tai proposes pan-democrats on Election Committee back a chief executive candidate in return for promise to drop action against oath-row lawmakers
Ten lawyers, including four pro-establishment legislators, have written to the justice minister to complain that Benny Tai Yiu-ting, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, risks perverting the course of justice, breaching the election law and committing contempt of court，– which they said could damage the city’s “stainless election system”.
Although the pro-democratic camp defended the professor, saying it was a far cry from breaking the law, it admitted the proposal had only received lukewarm attention.
The four, the latest to be targeted for their controversial actions while taking their oaths as lawmakers, are expected to learn their fate in a court hearing in February.
Leung’s action follows his successful bid to disqualify two pro-independence lawmakers, Yau Wai-ching and Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang, who were deemed to have insulted China and made a mockery of their oaths.
Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong vice-chairman Horace Cheung Kwok-kwan, one of the four lawmakers who signed the letter, said on Wednesday: “This is an immoral political deal.”
He said what Tai suggested had nothing to do with public policies but was to fulfil some personal benefits.
Pan-democrats seized 326 of the seats on the committee – enough, pundits said, to give them a “king-making” role. Chief executive candidates must secure 150 votes to run and at least 601 to win. At the moment there are two candidates: New People’s Party lawmaker Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee and retired judge Woo Kwok-hing. But two other heavyweights – Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah, who resigned last week – are expected to join the race.
All lawmakers have a vote in the election.
Business and Professionals Alliance lawmaker Dr Priscilla Leung Mei-fun said she was “bewildered and worried” that a law professor would urge someone to “test the boundary of the law”.
DAB chairwoman Starry Lee Wai-king said she shared the concerns of her party’s members.
But legislator Dennis Kwok, convenor of the Professionals Guild, which leads the pro-democratic fraction of the Election Committee, said Tai had only raised a demand many voters wanted, so there was nothing immoral or illegal about it.
Former Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau Wai-hing, who does not have a vote, called Tai’s idea “a bit strange”, but stopped short of calling it illegal.
Lawmaker Charles Mok said Tai’s proposal remained a personal idea that had not yet been much explored by Election Committee members.
The Occupy protests paralysed parts of the city for 79 days in 2014 as activists demanded universal suffrage to pick the chief executive in 2017.
