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Following is the transcript of the remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Henry Tang, the Secretary for Justice, Mr Wong Yan Lung, SC, and the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Stephen Lam, at a press conference on the Package of Proposals for the Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2012 at the Central Government Offices New Annex today (April 14):
Reporter: Secretary, in the end, it will come down to a vote and that’s numbers. Looking realistically and pragmatically, given the responses from legislators now, how would you assess first, the likelihood in your mind that you will get passage, and secondly, in that regard, what is the importance of arriving at the decision these 60 seats should form the number used to figure out what a majority is?
Chief Secretary for Administration: I will leave the second part of your question for the Secretary for Justice to answer. As far as the first part of your question is concerned, we want to give the public the maximum opportunity and time to discuss the content of our proposal and we have always said, once the content of the consultation is ready, we will publish it, and this is what we are doing. So that's why we have chosen today as the day to publish it, and to put forward the set of proposals. I hope the public will have ample opportunities and time to discuss it before we bring the resolution to a vote sometime before July.
Reporter: How would you assess the likelihood of passage, sitting here now?
Chief Secretary for Administration: We believe this package of proposal is already the best we can put forward in light of the NPCSC's decision in December 2007 and in compliance with the Basic Law. We have gathered a wide range of proposals, suggestions and ideas as well as views from the public in terms of 1.6 million signatures, 47,200 plus written submissions as well as various polls, both internal and external. So we believe we have struck the best compromise and the best proposals, and we would do our best, and until the votes are counted, we will never give up. I would now ask Yan Lung to answer the second part of your question.
Secretary of Justice: Can I just ascertain your question? You asked why is it necessary to deal with this issue, or you wanted to have an elaboration as to our stance on this matter?
Reporter: My question was why was it felt necessary to assess and what is the importance and implication of that decision?
Secretary of Justice: I think it is responsible to deal with this matter as a result of the resignation of five members from the LegCo. There is already an issue cropping up as to what is the meaning of the two-third majority. So it is a matter of responsibility on the part of the administration to provide our stance. In fact LegCo has requested us to provide our view accordingly. We have in fact provided a detailed response to LegCo which I understand has already been submitted to them today. In terms of the importance, I think it is a matter not just confined to this particular matter, but in terms of the understanding of what is the requisite majority. This is certainly important in terms of understanding the various articles where this matter is touched upon in the Basic Law. The Secretary has already this morning elaborated on the reasons as to why we have reached the conclusion that the base number should be 60, and the two-third should be 40. And I don't know whether you need any elaboration of it.
Reporter: Certainly, I think you're giving me the background as to how you came to this decision, my question is what are the implications, if any, of this for this proposal when it comes to a vote.
Secretary of Justice: The implication quite simply is that when it comes to a vote, we need 40 votes, as simple as that.
Reporter: (inaudible)
Secretary of Justice: That is in fact the conclusion we have reached, that the base point of considering this issue is the total number of authorised members within LegCo and that's 60, not the actual number of people in office, bearing in mind that the seats might be vacated, by reason of resignation or otherwise.
Reporter: You said just now that we should go through an intellectual thinking process over the issue of whether the appointed seats of the District Council should be eliminated. But I suppose that the Government has already gone through this process back in 2005, proposing a timetable to fade out these seats. So I just wonder why is the Government taking a more conservative stance over this issue than in 2005, is this a deliberate arrangement to leave room for further negotiation before the voting of the package. Thank you.
Chief Secretary for Administration: The circumstances in 2005 and 2010 are quite different. In 2005, the two main objections to the then package were that it doesn't have a timetable for the universal suffrage, the appointed members can vote in the Election Committee as well as Legislative Council's District Council member constituency. So as far as I understand, those were two of the main objections for those who voted against our package of proposals. This time we have dealt with both. We have dealt with the timetable because the NPCSC had determined that 2017 and 2020 would have universal suffrage for the Chief Executive and for the Legislative Council respectively. That clears away one of the main objections in 2005. As far as the other objection is concerned, this time in our proposals, in our consultation document, we have already come out and said that all the appointed District Council members would not participate in the electoral process of the District Council electorate, therefore we have cleared away the other barrier. Now the reason I said that we should go through this intellectual discussion is because the District Council appointed members actually contribute to the district as the elected members do. They sit in the meetings, they contribute, they do their work and some of them even make financial contribution in addition to their time and their effort. So that's why I answer an earlier question that we actually really should think about why we are in such a haste to get rid of them? What is the intellectual argument for it? Therefore the circumstances are quite different, and that we are taking this approach because we believe we have dealt with two main objections in 2005.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Issued at HKT 20:19
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