Plenty of frustration but no breakthroughs as Hong Kong lawmakers debate deadlock on Legislative Council committee
- Civic Party’s Dennis Kwok ‘no longer fit’ to preside over sessions, pro-establishment lawmakers argue at afternoon session
- The House Committee’s lack of a chair, the result of opposition filibustering, has left multiple pieces of legislation in limbo
At an afternoon meeting punctuated by shouts from frustrated lawmakers, pro-establishment members of the Legislative Council’s House Committee on Friday failed to break a months-long deadlock that has created a backlog of pending legislation in Hong Kong.
The committee meeting was the first convened since Beijing’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) and the city’s mainland liaison office this week publicly lambasted Civic Party lawmaker Dennis Kwok for holding up the election of a new committee chairman.
In strongly worded statements, the two agencies on Monday accused opposition lawmakers of paralysing the legislature with filibustering tactics, betraying their oaths of office, and possible criminal misconduct.
The offices said pan-democrats had “maliciously delayed” the election of a chairman for the committee, which sets the agenda for weekly council meetings and decides when bills move forward to a final vote.
Among the legislation caught in the backlog is a bill that would increase statutory maternity leave from 10 to 14 weeks as well as the hotly debated National Anthem Law.