John Lee said to back reform push on CUHK council

One of the Legislative Council members who initiated a private bill aimed at cutting the number of people on Chinese University's governing body said a consensus has been struck with Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu on the need for reform.

Legco yesterday had the first reading of the private bill proposed by Tommy Cheung Yu-yan of the Liberal Party, Bill Tang Ka-piu of the Federation of Trade Unions and Edward Lau Kwok-fan of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment Progress of Hong Kong, who are existing council members.

They want to cut the council's numbers from 54 to 33, with university representatives reduced from 27 to 11, while Legco reps would remain at three.

The proposal means those who are neither students nor university staff will dominate the council with two thirds majority, while the ratio of the internal members will be cut from 50 percent to only one third.

"The reform draft actually strengthens the college system of CUHK, including the five new colleges in the governing body," Tang said.

Cheung said John Lee has agreed to amend the CUHK Bill, but there were already many government bills that he needed to deal with.

"So the reform was proposed in the form of a private bill, which could be enacted faster," he said.

He also said keeping Legco reps at three was because "politics was about compromises." Some in Legco had, he said, demanded even more seats.

"We hope the bill can pass house committee this week, finish third reading before October, and enter the voting procedure on November 1 at the soonest," he added.

Cheung said CUHK should pay the HK$750,000 incurred to fulfil requirements and formalities for putting forward the private bill, including legal costs, gazette fees, and newspaper publishing costs.

"There are 57 pages in the draft bill, with each costing HK$6,552. The bill also needs to be gazetted for two weeks and published twice in newspapers. So overall costs will be HK$750,000," he said.

However, three other university members have denounced Cheung for his "arrogant and hostile attitude" in a statement to the chairman.

"We express strong dissatisfaction with Cheung for ignoring the extensively-consulted report by the task force, continuing to keep three Legco delegates in the greatly simplified council, and demanding CUHK pay costs," they said.

The three - Kelvin Yeung Yu-ming, Enders Lam Wai-hung and Barbara Kwok Pik-lin - condemned Cheung for disturbing the meeting's atmosphere with his condescending aggression, and demanded the chairman arrange a special session to settle the issue.