Dennis Kwok Defiant As Legco Tussle Continues

Civic Party lawmaker struck a defiant tone on Friday saying he won't be "intimidated in any way" over charges against him as the Legco House Committee meeting descended into a shouting match, and again ended without electing a chairman.

"I want to make it clear to all the citizens in Hong Kong; for such comments outside of the Legco, or such statements and condemnations, they will not affect the way that I chair the election of the House Committee chairman at all," said Kwok.

"If you try to intimidate me in anyway, it won’t work," he said as he wound up the stormy meeting which saw the pro-government camp react angrily to Kwok's conduct by raising points of order and criticising the handling of the meetings.

Pro-establishment lawmakers who spoke out included Luk Chung-hung who accused Kwok of a "lack of integrity", "negligence of duty", and of "hiding his political motives".

DAB chairwoman Starry Lee, urged Kwok to end the impasse saying the House Committee has been without a new chairman for six months.

Members from the pan-democrat camp fought back saying the pro-establishment site have been "activated" since the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office issued a strongly-worded letter accusing the opposition of paralysing the council, and suggesting that they may have committed misconduct in public office.

Civic Party's Jeremy Tam said: “I think we’re activating the pro-establishment members; they’ve been lying dormant for six months and all of a sudden they’re coming out in droves.”

Speaking outside the committee room, DAB lawmaker Elizabeth Quat said Kwok's decision to discuss a letter written by Lee to lawmakers was "totally unauthorised" and accused him of "abusing his power".

In that letter, the DAB chairwoman had invited fellow lawmakers to offer suggestions on how to handle the deadlock.

"What Dennis Kwok is doing ... he should not proceed with the discussion of this letter, because the letter is not addressed to him first of all," she said.

"Secondly he doesn’t have the authority to chair any meetings, because his authority is only to chair the election of the chairman of the house committee," Quat said.

But Kwok told reporters later that he has been receiving legal advice on the matter.

"I, as the presiding member, have been making all the decisions on my own, of course in consultation with the secretariat and the legal adviser," he said. "But at the end of the day it is my own decision, and going forward I will continue to abide by the rules of procedure and house rules to conduct this election."

"And there will be nothing anyone outside this council could interfere with that progress," Kwok said.

"I will try my best to allow a member to speak, and there is nothing, I think, more important than a member’s right to speak and to participate in a council meeting. So that is my paramount goal, which is to preserve that right to speak," he said.

Earlier on Friday, several dozen people joined a protest organised by the Federation of Trade Unions outside the Legco building, protesting Kwok’s way of hosting the House Committee meeting.

The protesters, including members of the FTU and its affiliated unions, shouted slogans accusing the lawmaker and his pro-democracy colleagues of using what they called “malicious tactics” to prolong the election of a chairman at the committee.

They say the pan-dem camp has wasted millions of public money by their filibustering, paralysed the council, and ignored people’s livelihood problems during this pandemic.

The House Committee issue has become a major controversy after the HKMAO issued a strongly-worded letter on Monday accusing pan-democratic lawmakers of misconduct and disrupting Legco proceedings.

The statement also took aim at pan-democrat lawmakers, and singled out Kwok accusing him of ignoring public interests for their own political gain.