Chan Kin-por, the chairman of the Finance Committee, has said he would suspend a Finance Committee meeting if a court judgment disqualifies any lawmaker on Friday.
The High Court will hand down a judgment over a government legal effort to disqualify four democratically-elected pro-democracy lawmakers.
The four, Nathan Law, Lau Siu-lai, Edward Yiu and “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung, have said they will attend a Finance Committee meeting at 3pm, when the judgment will be handed down.
The Legislative Council’s Finance Committee will be discussing Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s proposed HK$3.6 billion in new education funds when the judgment is handed down.
If the court disqualifies the lawmakers, they will lose their status immediately, and will not be allowed to attend any meetings.
Chan said on Thursday that the question of whether the lawmakers will be allowed to attend will be decided by the LegCo president, the secretariat and its legal advisors. He said they will explain their decision to the affected lawmakers, and the meeting will be held at a later date.
But Chan said he did not expect the meeting to be suspended for long.
Not ideal situation
Legislative Council President Andrew Leung said on Friday that the question of whether the four lawmakers can stay in the meeting would be made by Chan.
Leung said it was not a situation he hoped for.
“The government went to court to raise the case in accordance with the law – we can only respect the judgment of the court,” he said.
“We can only make a response when we have read all the legal documents after the judgment, because we cannot speculate on what the judgment will be.”
Asked if he will choose to delay implementing the ruling, Leung said: “This is impossible.”
Leung said the Legislative Council’s secretariat has plans for different scenarios.
“If they are lawmakers, then we welcome them to continue to attend the meeting. If they are not lawmakers… they cannot join the meeting. There must be a way to stop them from joining the meeting.”
The four lawmakers have said they will appeal if they lose the case.
