Motion under the Legislative Council (Powers and Privileges) Ordinance (2016/11/10)

President, I speak in opposition to Mr LAM Cheuk-ting's motion for invoking the Legislative Council (Powers and Privileges)Ordinance ("the Ordinance") in order to appoint a select committee to investigate the Independent Commission Against Corruption ("ICAC"), because that motionis not supported by concrete evidence. If the Legislative Council rashly uses itsprivilege to investigate ICAC, the credibility and image of ICAC will be impaired.

I notice that in Mr LAM's motion, there are subjective judgment andqueries in three aspects, which include: first, whether the Chief Executive,Mr LEUNG Chun-ying, or other related organizations, participated in making the decision to cancel the acting appointment; second, whether the cancellation of the acting appointment relates to any intervention in the investigation into the case of Mr LEUNG Chun-ying; and third, whether there was any conflict of interest orillegal act on the part of Mr LEUNG Chun-ying if he participated in making thedecision to cancel the acting appointment. These three sequential allegations arebased on guesses. We should know that these allegations, which are based on guesses and not supported by any facts or evidence from the persons involved, should not be accepted lightly, especially when they are so serious and the targets are even the Chief Executive and ICAC. After the resignation incident, Ms Rebecca LI, the protagonist of this incident, has never openly voiced her grievances so far. In other words, when there is no plaintiff, how can there beany defendant? If we rashly invoke the Ordinance to commence investigation,we will be unfair to the ICAC Commissioner and the Chief Executive.

Besides, as highlighted in the letter from the ICAC Commissioner in early October in response to the questions raised by colleagues in this Council, in regard to the acting appointment of Ms Rebecca LI and the cancellation of heracting appointment afterwards, the Commissioner had reported to the Chief Executive as a usual practice, and after noting the views of the Commissioner, the Chief Executive did not give any comments. This is a clear denial of the allegations mentioned in the motion, meaning that the Chief Executive did not participate in making the decision to cancel the acting appointment. In the reply letter, the ICAC Commissioner clearly described the whole process of cancelling the acting appointment and took all the responsibility upon himself. Yesterday,Chief Secretary for Administration Carrie LAM even clearly said that the decision of cancelling the acting appointment of Ms Rebecca LI was purely based on the appraisal of on Ms LI's work ability, and she also criticized that Mr LAM's comments were entirely groundless, speculative and misleading. Two high-ranking officials from the Government made their respective clarificationsin black and white on a public occasion. Given their status and serious attitude,I think they are trust worthy.

President, ICAC enjoys very good reputation in Hong Kong and even inthe whole world. Its anti-corruption achievements are attributed to its high transparency, as well as its monitoring mechanism and check-and-balance system. ICAC has to be accountable to the Chief Executive and is subject to monitoring by the Legislative Council. Apart from that, its various kinds of work are also subject to monitoring by four independent advisory committees. One of these committees is the Operations Review Committee, which has amembership of 13 prominent figures in society, one of them is my colleague from the democratic camp in this Council. This Committee receives from the Commissioner information about all complaints of corruption made, seeks to ascertain how ICAC deals with them, and receives reports on the investigationsthe ICAC has completed.

In 2015, ICAC received nearly 2 800 corruption complaints, including theUGL incident reported by the public and requested to be investigated thoroughly by Mr LAM. No matter what the investigation result is, it will be reported to the Committee concerned according to regulation. Then how can there be any clandestine operation or intervention in the investigation by the Chief Executive? If there is, the related Committee will also question about the situation.

President, ICAC has all along commanded public confidence, largely dueto its emphasis on confidentiality in its publicity, an important principle inhandling complaints of corruption and investigation. I believe that if the Legislative Council appoints a select committee to investigate ICAC, it will certainly require ICAC to provide explanations on the reasonable or unreasonable points of doubt, and this process will definitely tarnish its privacy code. The Head of Operations is in charge of four Investigation Branches and Internal Investigation, managing nearly 1 000 staff members. Inquiring into the reasonsfor Ms Rebecca LI's resignation will surely involve how she dealt with the daily investigation and management work during her acting period. As revealed in the ICAC Commissioner's letter, during the acting period of Ms LI, he held one to even three or four meetings with her every week in order to understand the work progress of the Operations Department and to discuss various management matters. After the select committee is established, it will naturally ask for orcheck the relevant papers before and after their meetings, and even the appraisal reports of Ms Rebecca LI. We can imagine that a lot of internal classified documents will be exposed. Can ICAC still live up to its reputation in future? Will the public still have confidence in reporting cases to ICAC?

President, probity is one of the core values of Hong Kong and ICAC has been demonstrating its high standard of professionalism and neutrality. It is really not my wish to see the invocation of the Ordinance to investigate ICAC due to some subjective speculations, thus causing unnecessary pressure to ICAC, andneither do I want ICAC to be used by the Legislative Council as a political tool against the Chief Executive. Therefore, the original motion is basically notworth supporting.

President, I so submit.