One Panel, Two Heads As Legco Battle Intensifies

Legco was heading into uncharted territory on Monday, with two rival lawmakers claiming they each had the right to preside over a bills committee on extraditions laws, with one cancelling the next scheduled meeting of the panel, and the other insisting it would still be going ahead.

Pro-government lawmaker Abraham Shek said he had been anointed as a replacement for James To as the presiding councillor for the committee and his first move had been to postpone Monday afternoon's meeting until Saturday.

But To insisted he is still in charge of the panel until a chairman is elected and the afternoon's meeting would still be held as planned.

Pro-democracy lawmakers began to gather in a conference room well ahead of the 4.30pm meeting time.

But the Legco secretariat removed details of the meeting from the day's schedule. It later issued a statement saying the meeting had been moved to 9am on Saturday.

Shek told reporters that 36 members of the bills committee had informed the Legco secretariat in writing that they supported the move for him to replace To, while 24 had opposed the change.

Legco's administration wing said over the weekend that if lawmakers backed the switch then it would have been deemed to have been accepted, even without any discussions taking place.

The pro-democracy camp on Sunday threatened legal action over the secretariat's intervention in the matter.

"The meeting this afternoon was not decided by me. It was decided by the Honourable James To. And I have been given the authority to fix a date, as per the guidelines given by the House Committee last Saturday," Shek said.

Pro-Beijing legislators have sought to replace To with Shek after the Democratic Party legislator allowed filibustering at the first two meetings of the bills committee and progress was so slow that a chairman was not elected. Pro-government lawmaker Paul Tse is tipped to eventually take up the role.

______________________________