HK experts back move to question candidates

Hong Kong legal experts on Sunday expressed support for returning officers in requesting some Legislative Council hopefuls to clarify their stance on safeguarding national security and allegiance to the city.

They made the remarks after at least 11 LegCo election candidates — all from the opposition camp including Joshua Wong Chi-fung — said they received letters over the weekend from returning officers who questioned over their criticism about the National Security Law, lobbying for foreign countries to sanction Hong Kong and threatening to veto the HKSAR government's budget if they win the majority in the legislature.

In a statement on Sunday, a spokesman for the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, the body that oversees the implementation of the Basic Law including electoral matters, said returning officers may "request the candidate to provide additional information that he/she considers appropriate so as to satisfy him/her that the person is eligible to be nominated or that nomination is valid."

The Electoral Affairs Commission (Electoral Procedure) (Legislative Council) Regulation states that a returning officer may decide that a candidate is not validly nominated if the candidate's answers to the requests are inconsistent with his declaration to "uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region". Such a declaration must be attached to the nomination form submitted by a candidate.

The bureau fully supports the returning officers to execute their duties within the legal framework, the spokesman said.

Barrister Lawrence Ma Yan-kwok told China Daily on Sunday that it is reasonable and in line with procedures for the returning officers to ask Legislative Council candidates to explain their past statements, which may be construed as defying the Basic Law or being disloyal to the HKSAR.

Ma said some candidates seem not to realize that "allegiance to the HKSAR" requires them to safeguard "the general interests of Hong Kong", not the interests of a certain group or some political aspirations.

Some of the opposition candidates who received requests for further information posted the officials' profiles on the internet in dissatisfaction, possibly to put pressure on them, said Ma. If their supporters use that information to exert pressure on the returning officers through intimidation or other unlawful means, it may involve criminal intimidation under the criminal ordinance and carry a penalty of up to two years' imprisonment.

Another barrister, Athena Kung Ching-yee, dismissed claims by some opposition candidates that the returning officers' move was "a violation of international human rights conventions". The issues raised by officials concerned national security that is now protected by law, and human rights should not be used as a shield for any attempt threatening national security, she said.

She added that it would be reasonable for a returning officer to disqualify a candidate if the candidate is believed to still support lobbying for foreign sanctions against Hong Kong or to oppose the National Security Law.