Hong Kong Half-Year Report | Legislative Council criticizes UK for taking the Members' Code of Conduct out of context

The Legislative Council, through its spokesperson, strongly condemns the United Kingdom’s publication of the “Hong Kong Half-Year Report.” The report disparages Hong Kong’s development and tarnishes the status of Hong Kong’s society, rule of law, and human rights. Furthermore, the descriptions of the Hong Kong SAR Legislative Council elections and the work of the Legislative Council are inaccurate, taken out of context, and urge the British side to face the facts, genuinely respect China’s sovereignty, immediately stop meddling in Hong Kong affairs, cease political manipulation, and do more positive and practical things that benefit exchanges and cooperation between Hong Kong and the UK.

The Legislative Council is the unique legislative body under the constitutional framework of the Hong Kong SAR and is an important part of the SAR’s governance team. Members must be patriots, which is a universally accepted political principle. Any malicious denigration of the improvement of the electoral system in Hong Kong is clearly ill-intentioned, disregarding the actual situation of the Hong Kong SAR, and is strongly opposed.

To enable the Legislative Council to perform its constitutional functions more effectively and efficiently, all members are required to hold themselves to higher standards, strengthen self-management, self-supervision, and self-improvement, and establish a “Code of Conduct for Legislative Council Members” to further specify the standards for members’ performance of their duties and the disciplinary mechanisms for improper behavior, while consciously accepting public and media oversight.

The “Code” requires members to sincerely support the Chief Executive and the SAR government in governing according to the law, to fulfill their duties with a constructive attitude, to provide advice and suggestions, not to intentionally undermine the authority of the Chief Executive and the SAR government’s governance, nor to deliberately damage or weaken the effectiveness of the government-led administration, and to strive to enhance the positive interaction between the executive and legislative branches. The revision of the “Code” agreed upon by all members further reflects a new pattern of governance in which the executive and legislative branches work together for Hong Kong. No one should take the “Code” out of context to undermine the effectiveness of the Legislative Council.