Starry Lee To Pick Which Advice To Follow On Friday

DAB leader Starry Lee says she will organise two House Committee meetings on Friday, one in the morning regarding the election of a chairperson, and another in the afternoon to discuss contradictory legal opinions regarding her powers.

This comes after Legco president Andrew Leung said he had received external legal advice telling him that as the previous chairwoman of the House Committee, Lee has the "responsibility and authority" to handle a backlog of matters to be dealt with.

But the Civic Party's Dennis Kwok, who has been presiding over the election meetings, said there is no reason for lawmakers to stop following in-house legal advice stating that Lee does not have such powers.

The DAB lawmaker said she would decide which of the competing legal views to accept following Friday afternoon's meeting.

"I have to exercise [my] power with caution. But we all know that six months have passed. We have to let the House Committee discuss this issue," Lee said.

She also urged Kwok not to allow filibustering at the first of Friday's two meetings.

"I would urge the presiding member to stick strictly to the election issue."

The prospect of a tussle over who gets to preside over the meetings is reminiscent of last year's battle over a bills committee set up to scrutinise the proposed new extradition laws that sparked the city's months of unrest.

The pan-dems believed that James To was the rightful chairman of the committee, while the pro-establishment camp cited a Legco secretariat circular when insisting it was Abraham Shek that was in charge.

At one stage, the two camps held their own rival meetings of the same committee.

Beijing officials recently called for Kwok to be prosecuted for misconduct in public office over the way he has presided over House Committee meetings since October to elect a chairperson.

Filibustering means the position, which is likely to go to Lee once again eventually, remains unfilled.

Kwok recently conceded that he expects to be kicked out of the legislature following Beijing's intervention in the saga.

The failure to elect a chairperson in order to enable the House Committee to function as normal has held up various bills in Legco, with the most controversial among them arguably a new law that will make it illegal for people to "insult" the national anthem.