Hong Kong’s incoming district councillors must attend 80% of meetings each year and file annual work report, as minister reveals new guidelines
- Home affair chief Alice Mak discusses new requirement after two closed-door briefings, weeks before new district councillors take office on January 1
- District councillors told they must give formal notice if they plan to leave city for more than 48 hours and can face investigative committee over any alleged wrongdoings
Hong Kong’s incoming district councillors should attend at least 80 per cent of general meetings each year and submit an annual work report, the city’s home affairs chief has said, weeks before the officials take their seats on the municipal-level bodies.
The local officials must also give formal notice if they plan to leave the city for more than 48 hours, according to new rules revealed by Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak Mei-kuen on Monday.
“The guideline is to ensure our councillors fulfil their duties diligently,” she said.
The Home and Youth Affairs Bureau held two closed-door training sessions for district councillors set to begin their four-year terms on January 1.
Eighty-eight of the 470 office holders were directly elected in a revamped municipal-level poll on December 10 that met with a record-low 27.54 per cent turnout, while another 176 were chosen by area committees.
Hong Kong’s leader selected another 179 candidates to join the 18 district councils. The remaining 27 seats are held by ex officio members who are rural leaders.
Mak on Monday said the new guidelines, which fall under a district council monitoring mechanism, required members to attend at least 80 per cent of the general meetings each year.
Before the “patriots-only” overhaul of district councils earlier this year, office holders would be disqualified if they failed to attend meetings for four consecutive months without obtaining the consent of the relevant municipal body.
In the past, district councils typically held five to seven meetings each year.
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Touching on other guidelines, Mak said: “[District councillors] should also open their offices and submit a yearly work report to the council chairman. They also have to launch a regular ‘meet-the-public’ mechanism.”
The minister also dismissed concerns over a requirement that district councillors should notify the District Council Secretariat, a body under the bureau, if they planned to leave Hong Kong for more than 48 hours.
“The new regulations are intended to enable the secretariat to understand whether all the district council members are in Hong Kong and whether a meeting can be held smoothly if the district council suddenly needs to hold an emergency meeting or take emergency action,” Mak said.
The oversight mechanism was among the amendments to the District Councils Ordinance passed by the Legislative Council in July.
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According to the new guidelines, a supervisory committee will be formed to investigate any councillor accused of failing to perform their duties. But the move must be approved by more than half of the relevant district council’s members.
Three members of the council can also sign off on an investigation, if the decision is approved by the chair of the municipal body and the bureau chief.
If allegations are substantiated, the committee will propose the appropriate response, which can include verbal warnings, a fine or suspension from office.
The offending district councillor can appeal to the chief secretary, Hong Kong’s No 2 official. The top minister’s decision is also subject to judicial review.
Mak said the full guidelines would be published in detail sometime in the immediate future.
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Wilson Or Chong-shing, who has been a district councillor since 1999 and was elected again this month, said it would be very easy for members to meet the attendance requirement.
“Our attendance requirement has always been bound by the existing rules,” he said.
But he called on the government to more readily accept requested policy changes from district councils, since authorities intended for the organisations to address public needs.
“They should interact with the members as the future councils are executive-led,” Or said. “They should no longer stay indecisive if members make concrete suggestions based on data.”
Rizwan Ullah, an appointed member of Kowloon City District Council, also said it would not be difficult for him and his colleagues to meet the requirement, even with his full-time job as a secondary school vice-principal.
“It is not only attending the meeting; our taxpayers will not be satisfied with us if we just fulfil the attendance requirement,” he said.
“The most important thing is whether we can address livelihood issues after collecting views from the public.”
