Legco president urged to intervene amid Beijing ire

Legco president urged to intervene amid Beijing ire

Pro-establishment legislators have defended Beijing's move to wade into the ongoing Legco filibustering saga, with one of the camp demanding the council's president find a solution to the current impasse.



Filibustering by the pan-democrats means the House Committee has spent six months discussing who should be its next chairperson, rather than getting on with its usual business of scrutinising the bills and subsidiary legislation introduced into the council.



On Tuesday, the pro-government camp insisted there was nothing wrong with the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) issuing a statement on Monday making clear its displeasure at the current situation in Legco.



They said the pro-democracy camp is misleading the public by claiming that Beijing has wrongly intervened in local matters, and the HKMAO has a duty to uphold China's sovereignty over the SAR.



New People’s Party chairwoman Regina Ip said she didn’t feel the HKMAO statement had gone too far by suggesting that some lawmakers may be guilty of misconduct in public office.



She said the pro-establishment camp will consider various ways of ending the filibuster, including pressing Legco president Andrew Leung to take action.



"We will write to the Legco president … [he] has a responsibility to ensure the smooth running of the whole of Legco, including its statutory committees and panels. So I think the Legco president should re-examine the rules to help us find a way out," Ip said.



Priscilla Leung from the Business and Professionals Alliance said there may not be enough time left within Legco's current term to amend rules to further restrict filibustering, but something has to be done about the bills stalled in the House Committee.



"One of the suggestions is that every meeting, they can allocate 15 minutes for the election, but then all the other important agenda will go ahead as normal. So we would not paralyse the House Committee, which indirectly paralyses a lot of the operations of the Legislative Council," Leung said.