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Following is the transcript of the English portion of a question and answer session given by the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Michael Suen, at the Press Centre in the Convention and Exhibition Centre today (Monday):
Question: Mr Suen, given the outcome of the election, will the Government now consider speeding up the pace of democracy in Hong Kong?
Mr Suen: As we have said many times before, the Basic Law already lays down a very clear road map for the democratic progression in Hong Kong in terms of the first term of the Legislative Council, the second term and the third term, up to the year 2004. There is a clear increase in the number of directly elected seats, from 20 for the first term to 24 in the second term and 30 in the third term. The Basic Law is, however, silent on the composition on the Legislature for the fourth term. But in the Basic Law there is provision for a trigger mechanism for Hong Kong to exercise in the year 2007, as to what is the composition for the Legislature for the fourth term. And I do believe that that provides us with a good opportunity to discuss what the progression for Hong Kong will be after the third term.
Question: The views of the majority of members of the community, as reflected in the geographical constituencies, does not appear to have been reflected terribly accurately in the balance of the Legislature as a whole. You say that the Basic Law sets out the progression in the numbers of directly elected seats until 2007. But as I understand it, it does not specify the precise formulae by which the functional constituencies and the Election Committee are elected. Given the clear will of the community for increased democracy, will the Government be looking at the formulae by which these 40 members - or 40-minus members are elected in the coming election, to ensure a more representative result?
Mr Suen: We are open to suggestions. But as I've mentioned a number of times before, the Election Committee is very clearly a transitional arrangement. We have the Election Committee this term; the number of members to be elected to the Election Committee for the next term will be reduced from 10 to 6. And for the third term we will have seen the demise of the Election Committee. And so it is very much a transitional arrangement.
As for the functional constituencies, yes, of course we have functional constituencies for the first three terms, each with 30 members to be returned from such constituencies. But as I've said, these are also temporary arrangements because ultimately, all the seats in the Legislative Council will have to be constituted by universal suffrage, as promised in the Basic Law. And so, I think, for Hong Kong, the right thing to do is to try to ensure that there is a consensus for the introduction of universal suffrage to all the directly elected seats in Hong Kong as soon as possible - as soon as after the third term.
Question: Mr Suen, you said earlier that it does not matter what method people are elected by; as long as they have popular support they will be elected. Now, at the same time that you say this, we can see that the forces that have a huge amount of popular support actually do not have a majority in the new Legislative Council. So, how can you say that the electoral method does not matter?
Mr Suen: I don't think it is a question of election methods. It is the design of the number of seats assigned to different groupings. As we all know, in accordance with the Basic Law, only 20 seats are assigned to direction election, 30 seats are assigned to functional constituencies, and 10 seats are assigned to the Election Committee.
As I have said very clearly, there is a progression in the increase in the number of directly elected seats each term, from the first term to the third term increasing from 20 to 24 to 30. And thereafter it will be up to the community of Hong Kong to decide when we are going to achieve the ultimate objective of having all 60 seats to be constituted by direct elections.
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Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.
End/Monday, May 25, 1998
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