Legislative Council of Hong Kong

History

Initially a colonial legislature, the first direct elections of LegCo took place in 1991.

Organisation

The term of office is four years, except for the first term in 1998 which was 2 years.

In the 2000 LegCo election, 24 members were directly elected from geographical constituencies (GC), 6 were elected from an electoral college called the Election Committee, and 30 were elected from functional constituencies. In the next election in 2004, 30 will be directly elected and 30 will be elected from functional constituencies. The method of election after 2007 has not been specified. The Basic Law states that the ultimate aim is the election of all the Legco members by universal suffrage (Article 68 of the Basic Law).

Constituencies

Geographical constituencies

The GC seats are returned by universal suffrage. The voting system adopted in GC is List Proportional Representation (PR) using Hare Method, which is considered to contribute to proportionality in assembly. There were 3.06 million registered voters.

Geographical Constituency	No. of Seats
	2000	2004
Hong Kong Island	5	6
Kowloon East	4	5
Kowloon West	4	4
New Territories East	5	7
New Territories West	6	8
Total	24	30

Functional constituencies

There are 28 functional constituencies (FC) in the 2000 LegCo election, representing various sectors of the community which were considered playing a crucial role in the development of Hong Kong.

In the 2000 election, each FC returned 1 members, except the Labour functional constituency which returned 3 members, giving a total of 30 FC seats.

• Heung Yee Kuk
• Agriculture and fisheries
• Insurance
• Financial services
• Transport
• Accountancy
• Finance
• Education
• Legal
• Information technology
• Medical
• Health services
• Architectural, surveying and planning
• Real estate and construction
• Social welfare
• Tourism
• Commercial (first)
• Commercial (second)
• Industrial (first)
• Industrial (second)
• Import and export
• Wholesale and retail
• Textiles and garment
• Sport, performing arts, culture and publication
• Catering
• District Council
• Labour

A "First past the post" system was used for 23 FCs, in which an eligible voter may cast one vote. The exceptions were Labour FC in which a voter may cast three votes, and the Heung Yee Kuk, Agriculture and Fisheries, Insurance, and Transport FCs where a preferential elimination system was used due to the small number of voters. In the latter a voter must indicate his/her choice in descending order of preference.

Election Committee

6 LegCo members were returned by the Election Committee (EC). There are 800 members in the EC, coming from four sectors with 200 members each:

• Industrial, commercial and financial sectors
• The professions
• Labour, social services, religious and other sectors
• Members of the LegCo, representatives of district-based organisations, Hong Kong deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC), and representatives of Hong Kong members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Most of the 800 EC members were returned by earlier sub-sector elections. The 6 LegCo members were chosen by a "first past the post" system, with each EC member casting a vote to choose exactly 6 candidates among themselves.

Building

The Legislative Council of Hong Kong is housed in the Old Supreme Court building in Central since 1985.

See also: Politics of Hong Kong

External Links

• Legislative Council of Hong Kong
• Electoral Affairs Commission

Referenced By