We Don't Recognise Starry Lee's Election: Opposition

The pro-democracy camp have accused the pro-establishment faction of overturning all the existing rules and procedures of Legco and say they will not recognise Starry Lee as the chairwoman of the House Committee.

Several opposition lawmakers who tried to stop a meeting on Monday claiming it was illegal were thrown out by Chan Kin-por who presided over the session before a quick vote was taken and Lee, who held the position last year, re-elected as chairwoman.

The convenor of the pro-democracy camp, Tanya Chan – who was one of the first to be ejected from the conference room – said it was an illegitimate meeting and they won't consider Lee to be the chairwoman.

"As you can see this is a illegitimate meeting, without any legal grounds, and Chan Kin-por in fact has exercised illegitimate power and so we don’t count Starry Lee as the chairman of the House Committee," she said.

The Civic Party’s Dennis Kwok, who had chaired committee proceedings until he was stripped of this responsibility by Legco President Andrew Leung last week, said the government and Beijing supporters are getting away with whatever they want and disregarding all the rules.

“The reality in Hong Kong today is that whenever Beijing, whenever Carrie Lam and the pro-establishment don’t like something, they will do whatever it takes, including breaking the system that we have, the rules that we have,” he said.

“The same goes for One Country, Two Systems, the same goes for the Basic Law and the rules of procedure. They will twist, they will tear down, they will burn down whatever is in their way,” said Kwok.

Council Front lawmaker Claudia Mo said Chan Kin-por had no power to chair the meeting.

"That was a perfectly illegal meeting, and a perfectly illegal election," said Mo.

She accused Chan Kin-por and the pro-government side of carrying out a political mission assigned by Beijing.

Tanya Chan also said that Legco security staff have lost their impartiality and guards had prevented the lawmakers' assistants from going onto the balcony or ejected them for taking photos of the proceedings.

Legislator Ted Hui, who at one point was seen sprawled on the floor after a tussle with security staff, said one of the guards pushed his head to the ground during the melee.