When we have a 90-member-strong legislature, things get done. Hong Kong’s Legislative Council has passed 117 bills, 98 per cent more than in the previous term. The bulk of lawmakers’ work is, well, making laws, so it speaks to the council’s efficiency that twice as many bills have been passed after a 28.6 per cent increase in its membership.
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Rules also limit the time that Legislative Council members get to speak: we generally require they get whatever they need to get off their chests within 15 minutes. No Hong Kong lawmaker will be looking to break records for the longest speech, unlike, say, in the United States, where House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently spoke for eight hours and 44 minutes, breaking the 2021 record by 12 minutes, to criticise US President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”. When big, beautiful speeches aren’t allowed, business gets done.
But when there are more people under your watch, your work doesn’t get easier. And so Legco president Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen has a tougher job, even if all the lawmakers are bona fide “patriots” without a penchant for the antics of their predecessors. Everyone seems to be on their best behaviour – at least when they are on the floor.
An enlarged membership appears to have come with disciplinary problems, however. Why else would Leung be seeking to introduce rules requiring that lawmakers attend meetings, take part in votes and regularly submit work reports? Even after Martin Liao Cheung-kong, the Legco veteran affectionately known as the “class monitor”, issued “gentle reminders”, legislators clearly have not been able get their act together. Yet, the legislature is passing what looks to be a record-breaking number of bills.
So I’m guessing there is a delegation problem – with members offloading their responsibilities onto others. With more council members, there are, in theory, more people to handle the business at hand and so there are perhaps those who feel they can excuse themselves from time to time.
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Given the detailed proposal to enhance the operation of the Legco, it looks like Leung isn’t kidding about. Some of the items included in the 104-page document submitted are quite shocking. A need was felt to set rules for committee participation, such as for duty visits outside Hong Kong – even on business trips, it seems that there has been slack.
