Advocacy & Campaigns, Past Events | January 6th, 2009 | 1 Comment

The Professional Commons called for the Chief Executive to abolish the Functional Constituencies and to genuinely put forward Universal Suffrage

Hong Kong will face many challenges in the new year 2009. Implementing a political system of universal and equal suffrage is a necessary condition for advancing clean politics, enhancing good governance, and promoting community consensus to tackle the challenges.

Legislative Councillor Ms. Margaret Ng put forward a Motion for debate in the Legislative Council tomorrow, calling upon the Chief Executive, when he put forward his proposals for reform of the method of election of the Chief Executive and election of the Legislative Council, to make clear that the Functional Constituencies are to be abolished and to ensure that his proposals lead to election systems in accordance with Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Professional Commons supported the motion in full. We have launched a signatory campaign on a declaration calling for support from different realms of the society. In a period of less than a fortnight, we have already obtained over 260 initiators supporting the declaration in 14 different sectors, covering engineering, legal, information technology, medical and health services, social welfare, accountancy, architectural, surveying and urban planning, tourism, insurance, commerce, as well as members of the District Councils. The declaration will be published in the Hong Kong Economic Journal tomorrow (January 7, 2008). Meanwhile, we have also inquired all 30 members from the 28 functional constituencies in the Legislative Council individually of their voting preferences on the motion, and the results of our inquiries would also be published in the declaration.

JOIN TO SIGN
Nonetheless, this is not merely a one-off action. Our joint signatory campaign would be relayed through our webpage (www.procommons.org.hk ). We are inviting individuals from different sectors to be the co-signatories of this declaration either through email ([email protected] ) or via phone (8200 6332)