The High Court has ruled that the Hong Kong government did not violate the Basic Law by giving three district committees the power to nominate candidates in December’s “patriots only” District Council race, a new system introduced as part of the election overhaul in May.
Veteran litigant Kwok Cheuk-kin, a member of the Democratic Party better known as the “King of Judicial Review,” filed a legal challenge in early November against the nomination system for the newly-restricted December 10 election.
Judge Russell Coleman said in a verdict handed down on Friday afternoon that Kwok’s application for judicial review was dismissed and that the nomination requirement was “not manifestly without reasonable foundation.”
Judicial reviews are considered by the Court of First Instance and examine the decision-making processes of administrative bodies. Issues under review must be shown to affect the wider public interest.
Kwok’s submission asked the court to repeal the requirement for candidates to receive at least three nominations from government-appointed local committees in order to compete in the race. All pro-democracy parties were rejected from running in the election.
Citing Article 26 of Basic Law, Kwok argued that the government’s requirement would bar candidates who were popular among constituents from running and would override citizens’ right to vote.
However, the judge said that he believed it was not sufficient to conclude that it was only because of an unfairness in the nomination system that the pro-democracy politicians did not secure enough nominations.
“What is shown is that members of the 3Cs [Three Committees] tend to favour themselves or their peers. But that is not necessarily inappropriate when the individual characteristic of members of the 3Cs (part of the reason they were appointed in the first place) is taken into
account,” Coleman said in the statement.
Surprising
Counsel Anson Wong, representing Kwok, told the court on Thursday that some three-quarters of election candidates were also on committees responsible for deciding who could stand, making it hard for non-committee members to get nominated.
Judge Coleman reportedly said that it was “surprising” that most of the committee members had made nominations from among their own members. He said members of the committees should only nominate those who were not sitting on the committees.
According to an HKFP analysis 75.4 per cent of candidates in the direct election also sit on the nominating committees. Among the 171 candidates running for the 88 democratically-elected seats, 129 were members of the three committees responsible for deciding who can enter the race.
Plans to overhaul the District Council elections were unveiled in May 2023 to ensure only “patriots” were elected, following a pro-democracy landslide at the last polls in 2019.
The number of seats chosen democratically by the public were slashed from 452 to 88 – reducing the power of public votes to a fifth. The rest are to be chosen by the city’s leader and government-appointed committees.
Constituency boundaries were redrawn, the opposition were shut out, voting hours were slashed by an hour, and each local council is to be chaired by a government official, similar to colonial-era arrangements. All candidates undergo national security vetting to ensure patriotism.
Fail to get nominations
The government has been slammed by lawmakers and those hoping to run in the election for refusing to disclose the contact details of nominating parties.
The Democratic Party’s six hopefuls were shut out of the race just weeks ago after failing to secure enough nominations, as were the two from the Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood.
In addition, moderate party Third Side also failed to secure nominations for its candidate, while Roundtable, a pro-establishment group founded by entrepreneur and lawmaker Michael Tien, only secured enough nominations for one of its five hopefuls.
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