CE Says She Can't Bow To 'unreasonable' Demands

The Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday commented on the escalating Legco drama over the administration's move to make it easier to extradite crime suspects by saying that as much as she wants to improve her relationship with the pro-democracy camp, she can't give in to their "unreasonable" requests.

Before going into this week's Executive Council meeting, Lam also said she would like to remind the opposition camp that it is their duty as legislators to scrutinise the bills the government puts before them.

On Monday, the pan-democrats rejected a move by the Legco secretariat to make pro-Beijing lawmaker Abraham Shek the presiding councillor of a bills committee on the extradition law changes, holding their own meeting of the committee and electing the Democratic Party's James To as chairman. They also passed a non-binding motion calling on the government to withdraw the extradition law bill.

Lam refused to comment on whether these actions were illegitimate – a claim made by the pro-government camp. But she noted that five weeks have now passed since the the bill was tabled and there's been very little progress on it.

"Improving or enhancing the relationship between the executive and the legislature, and between myself and all the members of the Legislative Council especially the non pro-establishment members, remains my objective," Lam said.

"But that doesn't mean that I will refrain from dealing with contentious issues or I will accommodate the wishes, no matter how unreasonable these wishes are, from the non pro-establishment members, in order to sort of appease them or establish a good relationship. Because my responsibility is to the people of Hong Kong and, of course, also to the Central People's Government."

Lam added that Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng and Security Secretary John Lee would be holding a press conference later in the day to respond to public concerns about the extradition plans, which would involve setting up one-off extradition deals with any jurisdiction in the world, including the mainland.

Tens of thousands of people took part in a march last month to protest against the move, which opponents claim will allow the mainland authorities to get their hands on anybody in Hong Kong they want, and for any reason.