Hong Kong protests: district council chairman sues government secretary over agenda row
- Administrator refused to act upon request by Southern district council’s chairman to discuss arrest of ‘vulnerable man’, detained at anti-government protest
- Opposition politician has applied for judicial review to force secretary to place item on the agenda
Lo Kin-hei, Southern District Council’s chairman, has applied for judicial review to force the secretary to place the police handling of vulnerable suspects on the agenda, in what he believes will be the first time councillors have taken their secretariat to court.
The latest row highlights the souring relations between district councils and the government after the opposition camp – drawing on public anger over last year’s now-withdrawn extradition bill and months of civil unrest – recorded a resounding victory over the pro-establishment bloc in the 2019 elections to take control of 17 of the 18 local bodies.
Democratic Party politician Lo argued that neither the secretary, who is a Home Affairs Department officer, nor the government – which deems such topics outside the remit of district councils – had the right to dictate what councillors could discuss.
“Our view is that it has always been the chairman who can decide what should be included in the agenda of a meeting,” said Lo. “Once the chairman has made a decision, the secretary or the secretariat should only follow it. We hope the court can make a ruling on this.”
At the centre of the row was a request by activist-turned-Southern district councillor Tiffany Yuen Ka-wai, formerly a member of the now-disbanded localist party Demosisto, to discuss at July’s meeting the arrest of an autistic man by Hong Kong police during an anti-government protest in Causeway Bay the previous month.
It was said the man, a Southern district resident, was not a protester and only passing the scene.
