HONG KONG: With Legislative Council (LegCo) membership now cut to 55 sitting members, President Jasper Tsang Yok-sing declared yesterday that 30 would remain the LegCo quorum. He stopped short however of interpreting the definition of "all the members" under the Basic Law on grounds that doing so created a potential for unforeseeable consequences.

At the beginning of the LegCo meeting yesterday, Tsang addressed the question of what would be the minimum number of lawmakers who must be present for a LegCo meeting.

It was the first LegCo meeting following the resignations of five lawmakers from the Civic Party and the League of Social Democrats which took effect last Friday.

According to Article 75 of the Basic Law, the quorum for a LegCo meeting "shall be not less than one half of all its members".

Though Basic Law doesn't specify the number of "all the members", "the half will be 30 whether the number is interpreted to be 60 or less than 60," he explained.

He leaves the interpretation of "all its members" contained in Article 75 to the Committee on Rules of Procedure, saying "all the members" is a much more complex concept than a quorum.

The term appears in many articles of the Basic Law and its annexes. If an interpretation were given now, it might be applied to other articles and cause unforeseeable impact, he said.

"Given the complexity of this problem, we must handle it cautiously," Tsang said.

The term "all the members" is used in important Basic Law articles including those on impeachment of the Chief Executive, formation of LegCo and amendment to the Basic Law.

Tsang's stance won approval from legislators from both the pro-establishment and opposition camps.

Tam Yiu-chung, chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and the Committee on Rules of Procedure, said the issue should be discussed in depth though he personally believes the number of "all the members" should be 55 under the current circumstances.

Civic Party chairwoman Audrey Eu said Tsang's decision is prudent and appropriate.

During yesterday's session, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung lashed out at the five newly resigned lawmakers for acting against public opinion and public interest.

Recent surveys by various universities have shown the majority of Hong Kong people do not support the so-called resignation en masse, he said.

The attempt to make the resignation a de facto "referendum" on Hong Kong's pace and scope on the road to democratization lacks public support and is unsupported on constitutional grounds, he said. The results of the by-election will not affect the government's political reform package, Lam said.

Meanwhile, another pro-establishment party indicated it will boycott the by-elections triggered by the resignations.

AT a press briefing yesterday, Cheng Yiu-tong, chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (FTU) said the party has consulted its more than 200 member unions and the mainstream opinion is not to participate in the by-elections.

The final decision will be made by the executive committee in March, he added.

"We are fully capable of winning LegCo seats in the by-elections. But we feel the by-elections have lost meaning and have become a farce," he said.

With the opposition's slogans of "referendum", "uprising" and "liberating Hong Kong", the by-elections have changed in nature, he said. "As a responsible organization, we cannot take part," he added.

DAB, Hong Kong's largest political party, announced its decision to distance itself from the by-elections on Tuesday.

(HK Edition 02/04/2010 page1)