Wong Ho Long
Hang Seng Management College
Author Note
Informative/Argumentative essay written by S136688 Wong Ho Long as ENG2010 Assignment Number 2 for Peter James Ronald Brokenshire.
Popular Nomination in Hong Kong
Recently, the Universal Suffrage is being discussed by the Hongkongers. One of the controversial issue is the popular nomination for the election of Chief Executive. This essay demonstrates the difference and the comparison of views of two parties which are the ‘against’ and ‘for’. By the explanation of the comparisons, it is believed that the popular nomination is a better way to choose the Chief Executive before the new method is proposed.
First of all, the popular nomination does not violate the Basic Law. According to the article 45 in Basic Law, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong should be selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People Government (The basic law of the Hong Kong special administrative region of the people’s republic of China, 1990). The Secretary of justice, Rimsky Yuen, stated that popular nomination weakens the power of nomination committee and ‘a nominating committee- as stipulated in the Basic Law- was probably the only authority with the power to confirm who should run. (Zhou, 2014) However, turning to the opposite side, the article 45 should not be explained in that way. (Ng, 2013) Because of the clearance of the article 45, it is illustrated that the core objective of article 45 is to carry out the Universal Suffrage which the popular nomination is a practical way to execute the article 45. The popular nomination can provide a chance for people to choose a widely admitted representative by citizens voting for their own candidate. In addition, in order to implement the right that is given by the law, everything must be restricted by the law. (The Department of Justice, n.d.) This is one of the spirit of law and it is believed that