Bar Association Raises Concern Over Election Delay

The Hong Kong Bar Association on Sunday expressed "grave concern" about the government's decision on Friday to postpone September's Legislative Council election for a year because of the pandemic.

In a statement, it said the right to vote was guaranteed by Article 26 of the Basic Law and by the Hong Kong Bill of Rights, saying it was a vital constitutional right.

On Friday, the Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the threat of a major Covid-19 outbreak was increasing, with record numbers of new coronavirus cases being reported, many from unknown sources. She said, as a result, the election would be postponed from September 6 this year to September 5, 2021.

But the Bar said there were serious doubts about the legal and evidential basis of the Government’s decision. It said international human rights experts had repeatedly warned that governments

must not use Covid-19 as a pretext to suppress human rights.

"Moreover, the HKSAR Government has failed to satisfactorily explain why the LegCo election was to be postponed for one year, instead of a shorter period of several weeks or months," the statement said.

Critics of the government's decision say it was taken because the pan-democrats stood to make strong gains this September. The government says the decision to postpone was not a political one and was based on public health.

The Bar Association also criticised the government's decision to seek guidance from the National People's Congress Standing Committee on how to proceed in the period up to the next election, given that the four-year term of the Sixth Legislative Council ends next month. It said the SAR government was effectively inviting the central government "to override the relevant provisions of the Basic Law and Hong Kong legislation to circumvent possible legal challenges."

The association says this is "contrary to the principles of legality and legal certainty and degrades the rule of law in Hong Kong."