Legco Action Just 'righting A Wrong': Longhair

A former lawmaker from the League of Social Democrats, Leung Kwok-hung, said on Wednesday that Legco's decision not to demand he return some HK$3 million in salary payments is just "righting a wrong".

The Legislative Council Commission says it would not be worth spending public money on a court case to try to get the funds back from Leung and three other pro-democracy councillors ousted for failing to take their oaths properly.

Leung said the authorities should never have tried to reclaim the money.

"From day one the HKSAR government should [have forgot] about it. They declined to do so and then asked the president of Legco to do the dirty job," said the ex-councillor, commonly known as Longhair.

"If you ask anyone on earth, is it right to have any kind of backdate effect on public officers or any members of parliament, all of the people would say that, 'are you not right in your head?"

The money was sought after Leung, Demosisto's Nathan Law, Lau Siu-lai from Democracy Groundwork and Edward Yiu were stripped of their seats by a court last July, nine months after they took office.

The court case followed a Basic Law interpretation by Beijing on oath-taking requirements.

Lau, for her part, said she doesn't think Legco's move should be seen as an olive branch being extended to the pro-democracy camp.

"[The authorities] are just doing something simple and reasonable," she said, accusing officials of "threatening" them over the money-chasing.

Lau said she thinks a strong public backlash may have played a part in the authorities' decision to withdraw their bid.

She also said their former Legco assistants are yet to receive their salaries for last July – the month when the councillors were stripped of their seats. She said she'll seek to meet officials about this unpaid money.

Meanwhile, Law said in a statement that Legco should be the one paying for the severance payments and payment in lieu of notice of their former assistants, saying they abruptly lost their jobs because of "suppression".

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