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The Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Stephen Lam, officiated at the launching ceremony of a carnival to promote the Basic Law this (November 28) afternoon. Following is the transcript of his answers to media questions after the ceremony:
Reporter: (Question on functional constituencies and the definition of universal suffrage.)
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs: I would say that it is purely speculative that we need to have the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress to interpret on the definition of universal suffrage. We should bear in mind that back in 2007 when the Standing Committee made its decision on the universal suffrage timetable, it was already stated in the decision itself that when we implement universal suffrage for returning the Chief Executive in 2017, all registered voters of Hong Kong would participate in that election. It will be one person, one vote. As for the Legislative Council universal suffrage implementation in 2020, back in 2007, both the HKSAR Government and Central Government officials have already made it clear that universal suffrage implementation for the legislature would need to comply with the principles of universality and equality.
Reporter: Do the functional constituencies comply with the principles of universal suffrage?
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs: For 2012, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has already decided that we should maintain a 50:50 ratio between geographical constituencies and functional constituencies. But the Hong Kong Government has proposed that we should consider involving more of our District Councillors, our elected District Councillors, in returning these Legislative Council seats. So that for a composition of 70 seats, almost 60 per cent of the seats for 2012 will be returned by direct or indirect geographical elections. I think we should maintain this momentum of injecting more democratic elements into our electoral systems so that we can continue to make progress in 2012 and 2016, and pave the way for implementing universal suffrage in 2017 and 2020.
Reporter: How about in 2020, is there any chance that the FCs will comply with the principles of universal suffrage?
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs: In the last few years, we have received various proposals for implementing universal suffrage for the Legislative Council. There are proposals made by various political parties which suggest "one person, one vote", abolition of functional constituencies and to return all members of the legislature through geographical constituencies. There are other suggestions, made by other sectors, of say "one person, two votes" – one vote for geographical constituencies, one vote for functional constituencies. But even under that formulation, over three million registered voters of Hong Kong will have a vote in both geographical and functional constituencies. For 2020, we have not yet made any final decisions. I think it is important for the Hong Kong community to continue to discuss our arrangements for electing the Legislative Councillors for 2012, 2016 and 2020. We must continue to make progress and by 2020, comply with the principles of universality and equality.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript of remarks.)
Ends/Saturday, November 28, 2009
Issued at HKT 15:12
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