Lawmakers To Start Voting From Home

Three weeks after holding the first ever "virtual" Legco meeting, Hong Kong's lawmakers have decided they don't even need to go into the council to take part in any votes.

Pro-Beijing legislators, who now form the only camp in the legislature, originally agreed that only "informal" meetings could be held online, and it wouldn't be appropriate for any voting to be carried out remotely.

But now, with the pandemic still raging, they say voting from home will also be fine, and they can just wave their hands in the air as they get together via the video-conferencing service Zoom.

The chairman of the committee on rules of procedure, Paul Tse, said Legco staff can help count the hands they see being waved around in front of the lawmakers' webcams.

But Tse said there would be occasions where the lawmakers would still have to go into work due to "legal obstacles", for example meetings of the whole council and the House Committee.

"Under the Basic Law, we are supposed to have a quorum to conduct a council meeting. We have to have a very strict requirement in terms of the number required to attend the council meeting. The question of whether a virtual meeting would constitute a sufficient quorum, we have doubts about that," Tse said.

The public are able to watch the virtual meetings online, but English and Mandarin interpretation services are not provided.

Transport Secretary Frank Chan made an appearance at the first virtual meeting on December 17, with some of the lawmakers saying they found the arrangement a lot better than actually having to go into the council.