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The following is issued on behalf of the Legislative Council Secretariat:
Ms Miriam Lau, Chairman of the Legislative Council (LegCo) House Committee, said that while the pace of introducing bills to the LegCo by the Administration during the session had been improved, the relationship between the Executive Authorities and the Legislature was getting worse. She hoped that Members of the new LegCo term and the incumbent Government officials would work even harder to change the existing unsatisfactory situation.
Speaking at the end-of-session media briefing of the LegCo House Committee today (July 17), Ms Lau revealed that of the 12 bills on the Legislative Programme for the current session, 11 bills had been introduced to the LegCo on or before March this year. She described that this had never occurred before since she became the Chairman of the House Committee in 2003, reflecting that the pace of introducing bills by the Administration had indeed been improved.
Nevertheless, Ms Lau said: "The Legislature hopes to improve the relationship with the Executive Authorities in this term; however, I should admit that we have failed to achieve this goal. In the last few months of this session, the relationship between the Administration and the LegCo can be said to hit bottom."
Ms Lau pointed out that following the media reports in February this year alleging that the former Chief Executive, Mr Donald Tsang, had accepted entertainment offered by business tycoons, the Council held a debate on a motion of vote of no confidence in this former Chief Executive on April 18, 2012. Meanwhile, the House Committee had discussed whether the LegCo (Powers and Privileges) Ordinance should be invoked to order the incumbent Chief Executive, Mr CY Leung, to provide information about unauthorised structure in his house. Although the proposal was not supported by the House Committee, it reflected how poor the relationship between the Executive Authorities and the Legislature was.
Ms Lau also said that the LegCo had examined several controversial legislative proposals and had experienced a number of unprecedented challenges, such as spending 88 hours and 57 hours to scrutinise the Legislative Council (Amendment) Bill 2012 and the Companies Bill respectively. A total of 1306 amendments to the Legislative Council (Amendment) Bill 2012 had been moved and the entire legislative process for this bill spanned over five weeks, starting from May 2 to June 1. Ms Lau believed that it was probably the longest time spent by the LegCo on scrutinising one single piece of legislation.
Ms Lau stressed that no matter what the reasons were, the LegCo should make every effort to finish examining all the bills and motions with legislative effect on the agenda. Otherwise, the scrutiny work of the relevant bills committees and subcommittees would be wasted. This would not only harm the image of the LegCo, but also hurt the public interest.
Mr Fred Li, Deputy Chairman of the House Committee, said that the Government had introduced 91 bills to the LegCo during the whole term, of which 89 were passed. Moreover, Members had also considered 606 items subsidiary legislation.
Ends/Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Issued at HKT 22:22
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