2015-09-14
Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (2nd R) raises a toast with the head of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, Zhang Xiaoming, (3rd L) and unidentified PLA officials, October 1, 2014.
AFP
Political commentators in Hong Kong on Monday hit out at remarks by Beijing’s top official in the former British colony, who said that the separate and independent powers of the executive, judiciary and legislature aren’t suitable for the city.
The head of China’s liaison office in the semiautonomous city, Zhang Xiaoming, sparked fears that the territory’s traditional way of life would be further eroded after he said that the chief executive’s powers surpass those of the legislature and judiciary and that the separation of powers “does not suit Hong Kong.”
Zhang told guests at an event to mark the 25th anniversary of the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, on Saturday, that Hong Kong won’t implement the “Western practice of the separation of powers.”
“The dual responsibility of chief executive to the central government and Hong Kong has given him a special legal position which is above the executive, legislative and judicial institutions,” Zhang told the forum.
“Hong Kong is not a political system that exercises the separation of powers,” he added.
But pan-democratic lawmaker Frederick Fung said the separation of powers is enshrined in the Basic Law itself.
“All of this, the powers of the chief executive, the power of the administration and of the legislature is all set down clearly in the Basic Law,” Fung told RFA.
“I can’t see anything in there that says that the chief executive has the power to change the decisions of the Legislative Council, or of the judiciary, so it’s a very strange thing to say.”
No overlap of powers
Fung said that while the work of the city’s Legislative Council had largely been led by policy initiatives from the executive since the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, there are still no areas in which the powers of the three arms of government overlap.
“As legislators, we have nothing to do with the judiciary; we don’t meet with them, nor should we,” Fung said. “In the Legislative Council, our work for the past decade or more has been to debate the policies put forward by the executive.”
Pro-establishment figures quickly moved to play down Zhang’s comments, saying they weren’t intended to signal the end of Hong Kong’s way of life.
According to Hong Kong and Macau Research Institute deputy director Liu Zhaojia, Hong Kong’s separation of powers is under the general leadership of the chief executive, while constitutional expert Albert Chen said the chief executive’s “higher powers” are largely of a symbolic nature.
Hong Kong independent book publisher and current affairs commentator Wu Yisan disagreed, however.
“It was extremely silly of Zhang Xiaoming to say such a thing,” Wu said. “If the chief executive really did have a higher level of power than the three arms of government, he’d be the emperor of Hong Kong, wouldn’t he?”
“The judiciary, the legislative and the executive arms of government are all independent of each other, which is a tradition that has endured for more than 100 years,” Wu said.
“This was set up on the basis of the Western political model and values, and has supported our peaceful development.”
Different political culture
Wu said Zhang, as a high-ranking official in the ruling Chinese Communist Party, comes from a totally different political culture, where the separation of powers is anathema.
“What he means when he says that the chief executive stands above the separation of powers, is that the Communist Party stands above the separation of powers,” he said.
