Rivals Trade Blame As Legco Is Forced To Adjourn

The Legislative Council’s full meeting was adjourned on Wednesday afternoon, because not enough lawmakers were in the chamber as the pro-government side stayed away after Democratic Party lawmaker Andrew Wan made a quorum call.

While the opposition put the blame on the pro-government side, their rivals justified their action, saying the pan-democrats were spending hours discussing matters that some people found to be unpleasant.

Before the quorum bell sounded, lawmakers had spent almost four hours discussing two urgent questions relating to the way police handled the protests on June 12.

Wan defended his decision to call for a quorum count, saying he wanted to "expose" the pro-government lawmakers who generally kept a low profile during most of the debate.

He said it was the duty of all lawmakers to be present during Legco meetings.

Civic Party legislator Alvin Yeung said the pro-government colleagues walked out collectively on purpose.

Another pan-democratic lawmaker, Chu Hoi-dick, also said he believes the pro-establishment legislators had left the chamber to avoid further debate on allegations against the police.

A motion relating to the matter, tabled by Democratic Party lawmaker Roy Kwong, was due to be discussed.

“I think pro-Beijing legislators chose not to appear before the quorum bell ends because they don’t want [Kwong]’s motion to be discussed… it’s a deliberate move,” Chu said.

The pro-government camp said they skipped the meeting after discussing the issue among themselves.

Liberal Party lawmaker and Exco member Tommy Cheung said the camp decided that it’s meaningless to “repeatedly discuss an issue that some people found disturbing”, so they did not return when the quorum bell was rung.

But Felix Chung, also from the Liberal Party, said whoever wasn’t in the chamber should be blamed for the adjournment.

“I really have no idea why the other members are not here. We haven’t had a chamber meeting for over a week. We should keep on having the meetings, I mean, there are so many things that we still need to discuss, we still need to debate,” Chung said.

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