The “legislative vacuum” to be created by the one-year postponement of the September Legislative Council election has drawn great public attention, and rightly so. So far, Hong Kong society differs on how this gap should be bridged. This is, conceivably, the reason why Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office Deputy Director Zhang Xiaoming is here in the SAR. That Zhang has braved the raging COVID-19 flare-up to gather opinions in Hong Kong suggests the central government attaches great importance to the special administrative region’s input on this issue. 

Ideas floated so far include “emergency sessions”, “extending the incumbent lawmakers’ tenure” and “a provisional/caretaker legislature”. The former, which requires LegCo to hold an emergency session by invoking Article 11 of the Legislative Council Ordinance, is apparently impracticable. It is simply unimaginable that Article 11 would be repeatedly invoked during the one-year transition period. 

Consequentially, creation of a provisional/caretaker legislature or extending the lawmakers’ tenure is probably the solution to the legislative vacuum. Either one would entail the involvement of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. 

The former falls in the purview of the NPCSC. The latter requires an NPCSC interpretation of Article 69 of the Basic Law because this provision states that each LegCo term lasts four years. 

As expected, members of the opposition took issue with the SAR government’s decision to seek the central authorities’ help in solving this problem, as they had done with any other previous government initiative.

Civic Party Chairman Alan Leong Ka-kit said the SAR government should find a way to “preserve the constitutional order” rather than seeking help from the central government. Hong Kong Bar Association Vice-Chairwoman Anita Yip Hau-ki also denounced the SAR government for asking the nation’s top legislative body for a decision on how to bridge the legislative gap, asserting that it would have a “big impact” on the rule of law in Hong Kong.

Leong and Yip’s remarks have helped Hong Kong people see the facts more clearly: Twenty-three years into the HKSAR’s establishment, many members of the opposition camp still refuse to recognize the central authorities’ role in the constitutional order of Hong Kong. They have been sleepwalking over the years so that they could not see the plain fact that the central authorities in Beijing are a core part of the SAR’s constitutional order and rule of law.