The Legislative Council (Legco) Commission has decided in a meeting yesterday to demand the four disqualified lawmakers, Leung Kwok-hung, Nathan Law Kwun-chung, Edward Yiu Chung-yim and Lau Siu-lai, to return all of their salaries and operating expenses totaling $11.74million.
The Court of First Instance ruled in July to strip these four lawmakers of their seats since October of last year for their improper oath-taking. Legco President Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen yesterday stressed that it was the Legco Commission's duty to recover the funds since lawmakers' salaries and operating expenses were paid by public money.
It is reasonable and legal for the Legco Commission to demand repayment of the funds from "Long Hair" and the other three. Lawmakers' salaries and operating expenses are for lawmakers only. The four have already been disqualified as lawmakers by the court ruling beginning from October of last year, so they are not entitled to receive such salaries and operating expenses and must return the funds they have received as such. They must not be allowed to muddle through and fish in muddied water.
On this, "Long Hair" and the other three yesterday argued that they had participated in the legislature's operation since October of last year, including attending meetings and casting votes. This is crafty sophistry. They did appear in the Chamber, did debate on some bills and cast their votes, and even did filibustering. But this is by no means meant that the legitimacy of their seats is not open to doubt. After the Secretary for Justice filed a judicial review to challenge the legitimacy of their oath-taking and won the case, these four lawmakers were disqualified in accordance with the law. Their being disqualified does not necessarily have anything to do with whether they have already attended some meeting or cast some votes. The reasoning behind this is similar to that some lawmakers often fail to attend meetings but they still receive their pays. What matters here is the court ruling, not whether they have attended any meeting or not. It is in vain to attempt to defy the court ruling with having attended of meetings and casting votes.
Therefore, the Legco Commission must spare no pains to recover the over $11 million drawn as salaries and operating expenses by the four, and pursue the matter to the end. If they refuse to repay then they should be sued and jailed or made bankrupt. Absolutely they must not be allowed to slip away unpunished by the law. The four yesterday showed their defiant features to openly challenge the judicial decision. Before them, there were the two precedents of Sixtus Leung Chung-hang and Yau Wai-ching who refused to repay the money they had received. Hong Kong is a place with the rule of law. An average citizen would be sued and jailed for failing to pay back a debt of just several ten-thousand dollars. How come some lawmakers can defy repayment of debts they owe? Not to mention that these are blood and sweat money from taxpayers in millions.
As a matter of fact, six members of the current Legco have already been disqualified, prompting the fund-recovering problem in the aftermath. This has been rarely seen in the past. The reason behind this is worthy of attention and pondering.
The nature of this problem, as Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor put it, lies in that the opposition lawmakers have gone so far as to resort to every conceivable means, including doing filibustering rampantly and wantonly demanding "headcount" to cause adjournment of meetings. And now they have even openly played tricks at the swearing-in ceremonies to heighten antagonism, totally ignoring relevant stipulations in the Basic Law and Legco's Rules of Procedure. That such a farce could take place has something to do with the fact that their evil deeds in the legislature had never been checked and punished until recently. This time, had the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) not made an interpretation of the Basic Law about sincere and valid oath-taking, which Hong Kong courts had to follow to make disqualification rulings, then there would be no knowing how many new tricks Leung, Yau, "Long Hair" and their ilk would have played and how amok they would have run to jeopardise the efficiency of the legislature and throw taxpayers' money into the sea.
This is a lesson that merits attention. Salaries and operating expenses the six disqualified lawmakers had received must be recovered. More importantly, however, in the by-election in March to fill some of the vacant seats, if voters fail to tell right from wrong and vote such trouble-makers into the Legco again, then it would be like to invite snakes into our homes and bring trouble to ourselves.
28 November 2017
