MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese):

President, Article 75 of the Basic Law stipulates that the Rules of Procedure of the Legislative Council shall be made by the Council on its own. For that reason, it can be said that the Rules of Procedure are the house rules of the Legislative Council. They aim at regulating the rights, probity and code of conduct of Members when attending the meetings of the Legislative Council, so as to allow the meetings to be conducted without a hitch, and Members to speak their mind freely on behalf of their sectors and constituencies.

 

The blueprints of the Rules of Procedure were adopted from the Standing Orders of the pre-1997 Hong Kong Legislature, while the Standing Orders were modelled on the common practice, precedence and convention of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Regardless of the pre-1997 Standing Orders or the current Rules of Procedure, they have been amended for many times in the light of the actual situation. The purpose of making amendments was to update the rules in order to suit the practical needs of the operation of the Council. For that reason, as long as there are valid justifications, the Rules of Procedure can be amended; or in case a problem concerning the operation of the Legislative Council has emerged thereby preventing a Member from exercising his functions, the Committee on Rules of Procedure of the Legislative Council is duty-bound to review if the Rules of Procedure in force fit the current situation, in order to guarantee all the Members of the Legislative Council may fulfil their functions as stipulated by the Basic Law.

 

More than a decade after Hong Kong's reunification with the country, the overall operation of the Legislative Council had been smooth as Members then were generally self-disciplined. Even there were dissenting views, different standpoints and heated debates; Members would try to convince the others by reasons in debates. Members were generally decently attired, thus the then Legislative Council as a whole gave the public an overall impression of dignity, rationality and a certain level of capability. As Mrs Regina IP said just now, Members from the pan-democratic camp started a filibuster in May 2012: WONG Yuk-man and Albert CHAN proposed a total of 1 306 amendments to the Legislative Council (Amendment) Bill 2012 and initiated a lengthy debate on the amendments. The numerous quorum calls had resulted in a large number of aborted meetings. At the end, the debates took 100 hours and 23 minutes to conclude. Since then, filibusters in the Legislative Council, lengthy debates, and aborted meetings due to ceaseless calls for quorum had become the norm. The use of filibusters had subsequently spread to the Finance Committee and its subcommittees, such as the Public Works Subcommittee, which had stalled the process of approving the funding requests of many works projects and thus affected Hong Kong's economy.

 

We used to mock the scuffles in the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan and criticized that the standards of policy discussion in Taiwan was rather poor as Taiwan's lawmakers only knew how to put on a show, and its legislative body was not aimed at solving problems. But in recent years, Hong Kong started to imitate Taiwan's practice, thus the Legislative Council has become the main stage for political struggles. Whenever the Government is likely to get the credit from a topic of discussion, or the funding application or policy is relevant to the Mainland, the opposition camp will make use of the grey area of the Rules of Procedure to delay the process of various meetings. They would make paradoxical arguments with a view to sabotaging the relevant bills and preventing the funding from being allocated on time. They would even resort to physical confrontations to prevent the normal processing of meetings and affect the normal work schedule of those Members who wish to conduct meetings in a normal fashion.

 

In 2019, there were disturbances caused by the opposition to the relevant proposed legislative amendments. In order to prevent the setting up of a Bills Committee, the opposition camp started to be part of the "mutual destruction camp". They made use of the Rules of Procedure to stall the election of the House Committee Chairman with a view to paralysing the operation of the House Committee for a total of seven months. All the Bills submitted to the Legislative Council were unable to be processed, which had almost caused a shutdown of the Legislative Council.

 

The objective of amending the Rules of Procedure this time around is to clear once and for all the chaos seen over the past decade in the Legislative Council piece by piece, so as to enable the Legislative Council to smoothly execute its functions in future. One of the proposed amendments this time around is to penalize a Member by suspending his service of the Council for a period of time and withholding part of his salaries for his disorderly conduct. For a Member who has repeated the disorderly conduct during the suspension period, the penalty will be increased progressively. The duration of the suspension on the first occasion is one week, and the duration of the suspension on the fourth occasion is eight weeks. After reading the relevant information, I personally considered that the penalties were somewhat too harsh. During the consultation period, I was of the view that the penalties for any subsequent occasion should not be increased progressively. That is to say, each suspension period should only be one week, and any repeated offence should only be penalized for a one-week suspension, because I considered the deterrent effect adequate. Of course, the Committee on Rules of Procedure has subsequently taken reference of the experience of the United Kingdom and other overseas' legislatures and consulted other Members. Eventually, I also agreed with the progressive penalty system. For that reason, I finally agree to support all of the amendments.

 

The amendments to the Rules of Procedure this time around can offer greater protection to Members of the Legislative Council when they carry out their duties and fulfil their rights. Unless Members are interfering with the proceeding of a meeting without any good reason, otherwise their rights will not be affected. Following the further implementation of the decision of the National People's Congress, I believe that the chaos seen in the Legislative Council will not reappear. Hong Kong's politics, economy and the livelihood of the people will get back on the right track, and the glory of Hong Kong in the old days will re-emerge once again.

 

With these remarks, President, I support the motion on amending the Rules of Procedure.