LC Paper No. CB(2)1658/98-99(01)

Administration's Further Response to Points raised
on 4 and 5 March 1999 by Members of the Bills Committee
on Legislative Council (Amendment) Bill 1999


C1: To consider a suggestion that the order of listing the constituents of the FCs should be reviewed so that it is more user-friendly.

A1: At its meeting on 4 March, the Bills Committee asked the Administration to consider re-organizing the items in the lists of electorates for functional constituencies so as to make them easier to read.

There are two options. The items in each of the lists of electorates in the new Schedules can be re-organized either according to alphabetical order or in order of the number of strokes in Chinese character. Using the list of electorates for the Wholesale and Retail functional constituency, we have prepared samples which are shown in Annex I. We welcome Members' views.

C2: To provide a list of proposed effective dates of the various provisions of the Bill.

A2:Please see Annex II.

C3: To give the Administration's view on whether the provision in Section 11 of the Legislative Council Ordinance regarding the emergency session of the LegCo is in conformity with Article 69 of the Basic Law which stipulates that the first term of LegCo should be two years.

A3: The existing section 11 of the Legislative Council Ordinance (Cap. 542) was added by way of a Member's Committee Stage Amendment during the passage of the Ordinance in 1997. The proposed amendment was finally passed and became part of the legislation. Thereafter we had carefully considered the relationship of this provision with the Basic Law and concluded that the provision was not inconsistent with the Basic Law. In this connection, Members may wish to note that a provision with similar effect as section 11(2) of the Ordinance also exists in the legislative Council (Powers and Privileges) Ordinance (relevant extract at Annex III).


Constitutional Affairs Bureau
April 1999


Tentative Commencement Dates for the
Legislative Council (Amendment) Bill 1999



We propose the Legislative Council (Amendment) Bill 1999 to take effect as follows :-

  1. The following provisions :-

    - should take effect as soon as possible after the Bill is passed only for the purpose of enabling arrangements to be made for the second general election in 2000 (e.g. compiling voter registers in early 2000);

    - should take full effect on 1 July 2000.

    (Note : Section 20 of the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance (Cap. 1) provides that if an Ordinance is to commence on a day to be notified in the Gazette, the notice may fix different days for the same provisions to commence for different purposes.)

    (b) For the remaining provisions, they can take effect as soon as possible after the Bill is passed.

    The above proposal is provisional only. We will publish the commencement notice after the Bill is passed.


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