Voice in Legco - Reforming District Councils (DCs) to Improve District Governance
The key to improving the governance of the districts is to get the district bodies to truly return to their original role spelled out in Article 97 of the Basic Law, i.e., their positioning not as organs of political power, in order to raise the standard of district governance.
Depoliticize DCs to ensure “patriots administering Hong Kong”
The ineffective governance of Hong Kong’s districts did not just happen overnight. DCs became a place for political wrangling after their establishment in 1982. Their development became increasingly politicized after Hong Kong’s return to the motherland. During the last DC election, candidates who were anti-China, destabilizing forces abandoned the livelihood of the people in the districts in their political manifestos to pursue their political agendas and obstruct the administration of the Government. At present, only 146 seats of the sixth-term DCs are filled by serving members, severely affecting the normal operation of the DCs. The nomination procedure and the District Council Eligibility Review Committee to be established under the bill passed by the Legislative Council on July 6 can completely exclude anti-China, destabilizing forces from the district governance structure and implement the “patriots administering Hong Kong” principle at the DC level.
Broaden DCs’ social spectrum to serve the public in a practical way
The purpose of the HKSAR Government’s plan to reshape the DCs is to enable people who are dedicated to district services to participate in the actual work of the DCs. The reform improves the composition and method to fill the seats of the DCs. The plan will help facilitate balanced participation, while the resumption of the appointment system can attract elites with extensive professional knowledge and various experiences, thus enabling them to listen to public opinions in a more multi-dimensional and comprehensive way. Going forward, I hope that when appointing DC members, the Government can consider the actual situation of each district to select people who are able to meet the development needs of the district, and allow those who intend to stand for election to have a fair opportunity to contact district committee members, enabling the effective selection of outstanding and suitable DC members holistically.
Supervision and executive dominance to raise standard of district governance
As DC members’ work ties in closely with the well-being of the public, their performance should meet public expectations. The reform introduces a performance monitoring system for DC members, which, by empowering the Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs to formulate administrative guidelines to set out the standard of performance required of DC members and appointing a supervisory committee to conduct investigations, allows the public and the Government to monitor the performance of all DC members.
To raise the standard of district governance, while DC members perform their duties conscientiously, the HKSAR Government should also manifest executive dominance as laid down by the Basic Law. Under the new system, District Officers who serve as DC chairs shoulder a heavy responsibility. They can not only establish the practices of the DCs and require the DC members to collect the views of the people in the district in respect to a specified issue, but also perform duties such as leading the Care Teams. The government must select suitable civil servants for such positions and provide them with training to improve their competency. I suggest setting up KPIs for District Officers and ensuring a proper handover when there is a need for job reassignment.
Lawful and reasonable composition of DCs is based on whole-process democracy
Regarding the democratic aspects of the DC reform, firstly, DCs are district bodies that are not organs of political power and their formation does not involve the democratic rights of citizens, so there is no question of whether they are democratic or not. Furthermore, according to Article 98 of the Basic Law, the mandate and formation of district bodies are prescribed by law. As long as it complies with the statutory provisions, the composition of DCs is lawful and does not necessarily have to be formed through elections. In addition, it is too simplistic and inappropriate to use the proportion of directly elected members as the sole criterion for determining the degree of democracy, because it may create a populist situation.
The Chief Executive has announced that the seventh District Council Ordinary Election will be held on December 10 this year. I hope that the reformed DCs can demonstrate the superiority of the system from the perspectives of diversified and balanced participation and whole-process democracy involving consultation, decision-making and execution, and open a new chapter of good governance at the district level.
This is a free translation. For the exact meaning of the article, please refer to the Chinese version.
Should you have any comments on the article, please feel free to contact Mr Martin Liao.
Address : Rm 703, Legislative Council Complex, 1 Legislative Council Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel : 2576-7121
Fax : 2798-8802
Email: legco.office.liao@gmail.com
Address : Rm 703, Legislative Council Complex, 1 Legislative Council Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel : 2576-7121
Fax : 2798-8802
Email: legco.office.liao@gmail.com
