To Rationalize And To Improve The Functional Constituencies Of The Hong Kong Legislative Council

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is the administrative and economic region which is the part of the sovereignty of China. It is not a country. The electoral system of Hong Kong is neither necessary nor be able to copy the model of electoral system of western countries'. It only can follow its own steps. The Functional Constituencies makes the electoral system of Hong Kong unique to the world. The history of Functional Constituencies in Hong Kong is long but controversial. The issue of Functional Constituencies being abolished or not has been in the most important position during the disputation of political reform since Hong Kong's return to China. Those who advocate abolishing Functional Constituencies argue that the Functional Constituencies Election is a cliqued election and they insist that one man will only have one suffrage in once voting, and they also believe that universal suffrage should refer to every vote is equal in value. And those who support preserving Functional Constituencies advance that Functional Constituencies representatives different views of various fields, so that it can balance the interest of different strata in Hong Kong, and therefore able to maintain the social stability and economic prosperity of Hong Kong SAR.The Functional Constituencies electoral system in Hong Kong Legislative Council established guiding with the Professional Representation Theory. Professional Representation makes the parliament adapt to multiple forms of modern society, and also allow the parliament to attract talented professionals. Professional Representation and Geographical Representation reflect their different public opinion in the parliament. In theory, they both have their advantages and disadvantages, so to adopt any kind of representation only in the legislative council is not perfect. Every democratic society which has large number of citizens has to strike a balance between this two kind of representations in order to maximize the benefit of them, and to limit the harm of them. There is only one chamber in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and it does not like the American Congress which divided the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Basic Law provides that Hong Kong SAR prosecutes the Executive-Led structure, so the main function of legislative offices is completing legislative work with the requests of executive offices and supervising of government administration. However, in order to achieve interchecking between two Houses in parliament, there are two electoral systems in Hong Kong Legislative Council which consist of geographical direct election and functional constituencies election. And they must vote separately when deliberate a bill which is not submitted by the government. This design of electoral system is considered to be completable and reasonable, because it meets the needs of Geographical Representation and Professional Representation simultaneously, and it achieves the purpose the Legislative Council would not be controled by some radical democrats or any special interest groups, although it only has one chamber.The sixty-eighth article of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region emphasizes that the ultimate aim is the election of all the members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage. In fact, those who believe that the current electoral system is contrary to universal suffrage unless the Functional Constituencies election system abolished confuse the universal principle and the equality principle in election. The universal principle and the equality principle are different in the electoral system so that the equality principle which means each vote equals in value does not have to be included in universal suffrage. Moreover, the equality principle in election just highlights the equality of the electors, and when we justify the rationality of the Functional Constituencies should not confine to the equality of the electors, but should gain more supports from the interest integration which is the unique function of representative government. For the purpose of interests integration under the representative system, all the strata and industries of society must ensure to have equal representation in legislative council. The democracy of election refers not only to the electors whose vote equals in value but also refers to various interests appeals could be reflected in representative institutions. Now half of the seats in the Legislative Council are directly-elected, and it embodies the equality principle of election, and the other half of the seats are elected by the Functional Constituencies, and it embodies the function of interests integration in a representative government that balancing the interests of all strata in Hong Kong society.The Functional Constituencies can suit the universal suffrage.The councilors of Functional Constituencies can also be elected by universal suffrage which is obviously not the same concept as the directly election in the five districts. The Functional Constituencies will survive long and develop continuously in Hong Kong SAR, not only because of its history and development are deeply rooted in the history of Hong Kong's political system so that it can not be easily abolished, but also because the Functional Constituencies has its own adaptability, which means that it can adapt to universal suffrage, and even can adapt to a second chamber. Even if all the members of the Legislative Council elected by universal suffrage, the Functional Constituencies will continue to play an important role in Hong Kong's electoral system. But it is undeniable that some provisions in current Functional Constituencies election system, conflict the ultimate aim of universal suffrage, so it need to be further improved as to meet the requirements of universal suffrage. From now on, when investigating the issue on the Functional Constituencies election system, we should no longer discuss its abolition or not, but how to improve its defects.