LegCo passed CUHK council reform bill

The Legislative Council on Wednesday passed the third reading of a private bill to downsize the Chinese University of Hong Kong's 55-strong governing council to 34 members.

The bill was passed with 76 votes in favor and three votes abstaining. The abstaining votes were Kenneth Lau Ip-keung, Tik Chi-yuen, and Gary Zhang Xinyu.

The bill, tabled by three lawmaker-council members Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, Bill Tang Ka-piu and Edward Lau Kwok-fan, also proposes lowering the ratio of outside and on-campus members to around 2:1.

The president's appointment will require 75 percent of the governing council members' votes as well under the proposal. The council seats for LegCo members will stay unaltered at three.

Edward Lau said the 34-member school board will be constituted as soon as possible, and there will be 13 members to be transited to the new one.

He added that the new council is the first step to enhancing CUHK's governance and reform.

Cheung said he would be actively pursuing the fees for the private bill, approximately HK750,000, from CUHK and throws a veil over whether the new council will be discussing the removal of the CUHK president Rocky Tuan Sung-chi.

The CUHK council welcomed the passage of the bill and stated that it would strive to work on the creation of a new council following the bill's implementation.

It regards the bill as an essential step toward better university governance and expresses gratitude to all members for their assistance and recommendations to the Council and the university.