But pro-establishment councillors said the deadlock in meetings would not affect their work, as they had been communicating with officials directly through various channels to reflect district needs.

As of Sunday, 256 – or 57 per cent – of 452 elected councillors had resigned, following unverified media reports suggesting that those in breach of new mandatory oaths of allegiance might have to return all wages and subsidies received since they took office in January 2020.

The reported sum could hit HK$2 million per person, prompting some to quit out of fear of bankruptcy.

But a government insider said the Home Affairs Department was inclined to demand those disqualified repay costs incurred only in the past two months, as it would be “more legitimate” to count from when the revised oath-taking ordinance was enacted on May 21.

No time for by-elections to fill more than 200 district council seats: Carrie Lam

Despite some 200 members remaining on their respective councils, recent meetings in at least four districts have been paralysed, including Wong Tai Sin and Central and Western districts, each with just three remaining members.

In Wong Tai Sin, where both the chairman and vice-chairman have resigned, elections could not take place to fill the vacancies as the District Council Ordinance stipulates there must be at least four members – a candidate, a nominee and two members who subscribe to the nominations – to kick off proceedings.

“Council meetings can still go on without a chairman if the district officer exercises his statutory power to preside over meetings,” said opposition councillor and lawyer Bruce Liu Sing-lee. “But he has been unresponsive. We can do nothing even though we chose to remain to serve the public.”

District officers from the department across the city’s 18 councils are the top government representatives coordinating affairs at that level.

In both Wong Tai Sin and Central and Western districts, all seven meetings for specific committees and working groups set for last month since the wave of resignations were postponed indefinitely. Meetings were also not taking place at Southern District Council despite the presence of a vice-chairman and three other remaining members.

According to email exchanges between district officials and councillors obtained by the Post, the department cancelled three of the district’s most recent meetings set for last month, citing the unavailability of both a committee chairman and vice-chairman to “approve the agenda”.

Uncertainty ahead for Hong Kong district councils amid arrests, mass resignations

Zimmerman argued that the council’s Standing Orders empowered him, as the body’s vice-chairman, to approve the agenda and preside over meetings until a new chairman was elected, and that there were no rules allowing officials to call off meetings. The council’s secretariat, in its reply, expressed “reservations” over Zimmerman’s arguments without elaborating.

“The question is whether [officials] have the attitude to ensure as much as possible district councils function despite the difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, they don’t and focus on blaming those who resigned,” he told the Post.

He added that residents’ interests would be undermined if the authorities continued to not allow meetings, as items on the agenda included proposals to increase the number of buses serving the area and enhance district facilities.

At the 35-seat Eastern District Council, where 23 members had resigned, including both the chairman and vice-chairman, all four recent meetings have been cancelled. But pro-establishment councillor Annie Lee Ching-har, from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said it would make “no difference” to her work.

“The opposition had treated council meetings as a stage for their political stunts,” she said, citing an example in which her proposal to construct footbridge facilities for the disabled was earlier voted down.

“It would be more efficient for me to directly communicate with officials through my own channels.”

The opposition camp controlled 17 councils following their landslide victory in the 2019 polls, conducted at the height of that year’s anti-government protests. But the mass resignations of opposition councillors gave the upper hand back to their pro-establishment rivals in five districts.

At Kowloon City District Council, now held by the pro-establishment camp, a July 22 meeting of its housing and development planning committee proceeded without its chairman and vice-chairman.

More than 70 Hong Kong opposition councillors quit ahead of coming cull

Assistant district officer Melvin Kan Yiu-chun presided over talks. Kan hosted a chairman election and passed the floor to the only candidate, Cheung King-fun from the pro-government camp, to chair the discussion.

Cheung told the Post after the meeting that it was home affairs officials who approved the agenda while the position of chairman was vacant. He said he did not believe the hollowed-out councils had an adverse impact on district affairs.

Asked to explain the apparent difference in treatment across councils, a department spokeswoman said each one had its own Standing Orders for regulating procedure and committees.

She said the government would “consider how to handle the operation” of councils that did not have enough members to elect a chairman and vice-chairman.

Ivan Choy Chi-keung, a political scientist at Chinese University, said he believed the government would not take the standstill seriously, as it was prepared to transfer some of the councils’ advisory duties to unelected local groups such as area committees.

“The authorities are anticipating councils with stronger voices from the pro-government camp. But it’s undeniable that district services will be hampered when so many have left,” he said.