Carrie Lam made it clear when running in the election that she would extend the Prevention of Bribery Ordinace to regulate the behavior of the Chief Executive. She has made for the first time the other day a public expression of not going to complete the related amendment within her tenure, accentuating that now “the status and identity of the Chief Executive has been clarified”, and indicating that the Chief Executive designated by the Central Government(CG) needs to be held accountable to the CG, hence the CG being responsible for handling the issue concerned. As a matter of fact, Carrie Lam does not have to be dodgy. The actuality is the Chief Executive is a “subordinate” to the CG, so even if irrefutable evidence proves him/her bribed, the enforcement of family rules will be exercised by the CG, but not her coming up for trail at a local council and court, which will cause damage to the overriding status. At a symposium on the Basic Law in 2015, Zhang Xiaoming said: “The peculiar legal status of the Chief Executive overrides the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, and is situated in the core position of the SAR operating at full strength. Placed under the CG and above the three powers of the SAR, it functions as a pivot that is necessary for the Chief Executive to be held accountable to the CG, and for the CG to govern the SAR.”

That theory of chief executive being overriding is intended to get the executive-led polity left by the British governance replaced. Originally, the narrative of executive-led government is used to describe a relationship between executive and legislative bodies; the relative concept is “legislation-led”. Generally speaking, political systems are categorized according to power enjoyed by parliaments:

In a legislation-led polity, the parliament, like the one in the US, is empowered to table bills while in an executive-led polity, only the executive body is entitled to table motions, which Anson Chan, former Chief Secretary for Administration, summarized in those days in a simple sentence, “I propose, you dispose” – bills tabled by officials for deliberation can be amended or vetoed. An executive-led system has never been tantamount to a legislation-led system. Conceptually, one is orange while the other is apple; they are entirely not related. As for the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, they perform their duties respectively. The concept of executive-led government amounting to chief executive-led government has never existed, nor has the notion of chief executive-led polity meaning the “overriding” status of the chief executive over the legislative and judiciary bodies.

If the Basic Law was interpreted pursuant to the then Hong Kong political system, the executive-led turned chief executive-led government of today would be surely a totally novel system. I believe that the Chief Executive administering LegCo members being sworn in in the days to come is also aimed at manifesting its overriding status, which is not to be checked and balanced by the council. It will then be more impossible for the Chief Executive to be circumscribed by the Prevention of Bribery Ordinace.

This is a regress to the colonial governance of the 60s and 70s. In the history of Hong Kong, the status of the colonial Governor, who used to centralize control over the colony, was overriding. The Governor presided over the executive council of the executive branch and the legislative council of the legislative branch while members of both were appointed by him. All motions and bills deliberated at the two councils had to be approved and signed by him before passage, which continued until 1985. The two councils were only advisors and assistants to the Governor in his administration. The role of the Governor as the leader of the two councils went on until 1993. Grantham, the 22nd Governor, wrote in his memoir: “In this British colony directly under the jurisdiction of the UK, the status of the Governor is preceded only by God. Wherever the Governor goes, everyone needs to stand up. Under any circumstance, the people have to comply with his advice. ‘Yes, Your Eminence’, ‘Yes, Your Excellency’ are often heard.”

Since the British government started putting into effect a representative government in 1985, the absolute power and overriding status of the Governor had been dying out. Until after 1995 when Chris Patten carried out the political reform, the overriding status of the Governor was confined to within the government’s executive branch. When policies were approved by the Governor in Council, they were not guaranteed to be passed by the legislative council. During the later stage of the British governance, the development of the political system was navigated by democracy and diversification, which was what Hong Kong people craved for unanimously. It is just to everyone’s surprise that 23 years after the Handover, we have witnessed the regress of Hong Kong polity to the “colonial pattern” in the Grantham era.

(Lau Sai Leung, political commentator)

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