Four pro-democracy members of the Hong Kong Legislative Council were disqualified on Wednesday (November 11, 2020).
The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) made a decision earlier that day that Hong Kong legislators will lose their qualifications even if they are disqualified for “seeking interference in the affairs of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region by foreign countries or forces outside the territory, or engaging in other acts that endanger national security…upon a determination made in accordance with law.” The NPCSC also specified that members of the sixth term LegCo whose nominations were ruled invalid due to the above circumstances and who could not run in the election for the seventh term of the LegCo were suitable for the above decision.
As soon as the above decision of the NPCSC was made, the HKSAR government immediately announced the disqualification of the four legislators. They are Yeung Ngok-kiu, Kwok Wing-hang and Kwok Ka-ki of the Civic Party and Leung Kai-cheong of the Professional Forum on Politics. They had previously been disqualified by the Returning Officer from running in the Legislative Council elections scheduled for September for calling the attention of the United States and the international community to Beijing’s imposition of the National Security Law in Hong Kong.
Following the SAR government’s announcement of the disqualification of the four democrats, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said that a person who does not meet the statutory requirements and conditions to stand for election would naturally not have the statutory requirements and conditions to serve as a legislator.
The four disqualified pro-democracy activists said it was a dark day, proving that one country, two systems no longer existed.
Radio Television Hong Kong quoted University of Hong Kong Law School professor Chen Wenmin as saying that the NPC Standing Committee was acting lawlessly because according to Article 79 of the Basic Law, a decision to disqualify a lawmaker needs to be approved by two-thirds of the Legislative Council.
On Monday, Democrat Party Chairman Jason Wu Chi-wai, the convener of the pro-democracy meeting at the Legislative Council, said the pro-democracy camp had unanimously decided that if the NPCSC decided to disqualify the pro-democracy lawmakers, the 19 incumbent pro-democracy lawmakers would unhesitatingly resign in the strongest show of protest.
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