Colonial period

The Legislative Council of Hong Kong was set up in 1843 for the first time as a colonial legislature under British rule. Hong Kong's first constitution,^[5] in the form of Queen Victoria's letters patent, issued on 27 June 1843 and titled the Charter of the Colony of Hong Kong, authorised the establishment of the Legislative Council to advise the Governor of Hong Kong's administration. The council had four official members including the governor who was president of the council when it was first established. The Letters Patent of 1888, which replaced the 1843 charter, added the significant words "and consent" after the words "with the advice".^[5] The Legislative Council was initially set up as the advisory body to the governor, and for the most of the time, consisted half of official members, who were the government officials seated in the council, and half of unofficial members who were appointed by the Governor.

After the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed on 19 December 1984 (in which the United Kingdom agreed to transfer the sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997), the Hong Kong government decided to start the process of democratisation based on the consultative document, Green Paper: the Further Development of Representative Government in Hong Kong on 18 July 1984.^[7]

The first elections to the Council were held in 1985, followed by the first direct elections of the Legislative Council held in 1991. The Legislative Council became a fully elected legislature for the first time in 1995 and extensively expanded its functions and organisations throughout the last years of the colonial rule.^[8]

The People's Republic of China government did not agree with reforms to the Legislative Council enacted by the last Governor Chris Patten in 1994. Therefore, it withdrew the previous so-called "through-train" policy that would have allowed for members elected to the colonial Legislative Council automatically becoming members of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) legislature. Instead, the Beijing government resolved to set up an alternative legislative council in preparation for the return of Hong Kong sovereignty from Britain to China.

Before the 1997 transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, rather than working through the 1995 elected colonial legislature, the government of China, through the Preparatory Committee for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), unilaterally established, in 1996, the Provisional Legislative Council (PLC) in Shenzhen, under the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China.^[9]

The Provisional Legislative Council, seen as unconstitutional by the British authorities and boycotted by most pro-democracy legislators, was in operation from 25 January 1997 to 30 June 1998 and held its meetings in Shenzhen until 30 June 1997, when the PLC moved to Hong Kong and replaced the elected legislature from the 1997 handover of Hong Kong until the 1998 Hong Kong legislative election. Since 2000, the terms of the Legislative Council have been four years, with the exception of the 6th Legislative Council.

Early SAR years

The current HKSAR Legislative Council was established on 1 October 1998 under the Hong Kong Basic Law. The first meeting of the council was held in July of the same year. Five subsequent Legislative Council elections have been held — the most recent being held on 4 September 2016. The Democratic Party had briefly held the largest-party status in the early years of the SAR period, but its support was slowly eaten away by its pro-democracy allies such as The Frontier and later the Civic Party. In the 2004 election, the pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) surpassed the Democrats as the largest party for the first time and has since held its superior status. Due to the indirectly elected trade-based functional constituencies which largely favour business interests — represented by the Liberal Party and subsequently the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) — the pro-Beijing camp has been able to keep the majority in the legislature despite receiving fewer votes than the pro-democracy bloc in the direct elections.

Article 68 of the Hong Kong Basic Law states that the ultimate aim is the election of all the members of the Legislative Council by universal suffrage. This and a similar article dealing with election of the Chief Executive have made universal suffrage for the council and the Chief Executive a dominant issue in Hong Kong politics.

In 2010, the government's constitutional reform proposal became the first and only constitutional move to have been passed by the Legislative Council in the SAR era with the support of the Democratic Party after the Beijing government accepted the modified package as presented by the party, which increased the composition of the Legislative Council from 60 to 70 seats; adding five seats in the directly elected geographical constituencies and five new District Council (Second) functional constituency seats which are nominated by the District Councillors and elected by all registered electorates.^[10] The 2014 Hong Kong electoral reform proposal, which suggested the electoral method of the Legislative Council remain unchanged, was vetoed in 2015, after a massive occupation protest demanding universal suffrage — often dubbed the "Umbrella Revolution" — broke out in 2014.^[11]

The 2016 New Territories East by-election and September general election saw the rise of localist tide where a number of pro-independence candidates were elected to the council. In November, in Beijing's fifth interpretation of the Basic Law since the 1997 handover, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) disqualified two pro-independence legislators from assuming public office pursuant to Article 104.^[12][13] Four more pro-democracy and localist legislators were unseated in subsequent court cases.^[14] Returning officers also disqualified certain candidates who had advocated for Hong Kong self-determination, with or without option for independence, from running in the following by-elections; the government expressed support for such decisions.^[15][16]

2019 crisis and 2021 overhaul

The 2019 amendment of the extradition bill caused an historic political upheaval, where intensive protests erupted throughout the city in the latter half of the year, including the storming of the Legislative Council Complex on the 22nd anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong on 1 July.^[17] In July 2020, in light of the pro-democrats' attempt to seize the majority of the Legislative Council in the midst of the largely unpopular Carrie Lam government, the government postponed the seventh general election, citing the COVID-19 spike. At variance with the four-year term set out in the Basic Law, the NPCSC decided in August that the sitting Legislative Council should continue with its duties for at least one year; however, the term of the upcoming LegCo would remain four years.^[12][18] In a November decision, the NPCSC disqualified LegCo members on grounds such as Hong Kong independence, Chinese sovereignty, and solicitation of foreign intervention, impacting four sitting legislators whose candidacies had been invalidated in the postponed election.^[12] After the disqualification, the 15 remaining pro-democracy legislators announced their resignation in protest, leaving the legislature with virtually no opposition.^[19]

On 27 January 2021, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping said that Hong Kong could only maintain its long-term stability and security by ensuring "patriots governing Hong Kong" when he reviewed a work report delivered by Carrie Lam.^[20] In March 2021, China's National People's Congress passed a resolution that authorised an overhaul of Hong Kong's electoral system, including that of the Legislative Council.^[21] The reform would allow a new Candidate Eligibility Review Committee, composed entirely of principal officials from the Hong Kong government, to vet candidates for the Legislative Council and would increase its total number of seats from 70 to 90.^[22] However, the seats that were directly elected would be reduced from 35 to 20, the five directly elected District Council (Second) seats would also be removed, while an additional 40 seats would be elected by the pro-Beijing Election Committee and 30 seats would remain trade-based functional constituencies. Every candidate must have nominations from each of the five sectors in the Election Committee.^[22][23]

The seventh Legislative Council term, beginning in January 2022, made changes where lawmakers' names were replaced with "a member" or "members" in meeting minutes, a change which the Hong Kong Journalists Association said was negative and that "One one hand, that would make it more difficult for the public to hold lawmakers accountable, and therefore affect how voters may vote."^[24]

In April 2023, a survey found that half of Hongkongers were unable to name any serving lawmaker, with another 12% naming somebody not a current lawmaker.^[25]

In May 2023, the Legislative Council voted with 100% approval to let the chief executive restrict overseas lawyers from national security cases, following attempts by the government to block Jimmy Lai from hiring Tim Owen as his defense lawyer.^[26]

In September 2023, a report found that at least 66% of all bills that were passed were done with less than half of all Legislative Council members present, below the 50% attendance threshold for a quorum.^[27]

Geographical constituencies

The Geographical Constituency (GC) seats are returned by universal suffrage. 20 seats of the Legislative Council are returned by GCs through single non-transferable vote with a district magnitude of 2 ("binomial system"). The binomial system was instituted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in its amendment to Annex 2 of the Basic Law on 30 March 2021.

Geographical constituencies were first introduced in Hong Kong's first legislative election with direct elections in 1991. The electoral system and boundaries of GCs have since changed:

Vote share of Hong Kong political parties, 1991-2021

Between 1998 and 2016, the voting system adopted in GCs is a system of party-list proportional representation, with seats allocated by the largest remainder method using the Hare quota as the quota for election.

Functional constituencies

Under the 2021 Hong Kong electoral changes, 28 functional constituencies (FC) return 30 members. The Labour Functional Constituency returns three members by block voting. The other FCs return one member each with first-past-the-post voting.

The 2021 electoral reform saw the dissolution of District Council (First) and District Council (Second) FCs. Three existing FCs were reconstituted: the Information Technology FC reorganised as the Technology & Innovation FC; the Medical FC and Health Services FC combined to form the Medical and Health Services FC. Two new FCs were established, namely the Commercial (Third) and the HKSAR Deputies to the National People's Congress, HKSAR Members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and Representatives of Relevant National Organisations FCs. Functional constituencies are now principally elected by body votes; the number of FCs with individual votes were reduced, together with elimination of mixed individual and body voting systems.

The following FCs were abolished in the 2021 electoral reform.

Between 1998 and 2016, the Heung Yee Kuk, Agriculture and Fisheries, Insurance, and Transport FCs where a preferential elimination system is used due to the small number of voters. In the preferential elimination system, a voter must indicate preferences rather than approval/disapproval or a single choice. District Council (Second) uses the same voting rule in Geographical constituencies for the 5 seats.

Before the 2021 elections, neither the Heung Yee Kuk nor the Commercial (Second) FCs have held an actual election, as only one candidate has stood for each FC in every election since their establishment in 1991 and 1985, respectively.

Election Committee Constituency

The Election Committee constituency was one of the three constituencies designed in the Basic Law of Hong Kong next to the directly elected geographical constituencies and the indirectly elected functional constituencies for the first and second-term Legislative Council in the early SAR period. With the last British Governor Chris Patten's electoral reform, the ECC was composed of all elected District Board members who had been elected in 1994. The Single Transferable Vote system was used in the 1995 election.^[33]

After the handover of Hong Kong, the ECC was allocated 10 seats out of the total 60 seats in the SAR Legislative Council, comprising all members of the Election Committee which also elected the Chief Executive every five years. The size of the constituency reduced to six seats in 2000 and was entirely abolished and replaced by the directly elected geographical constituency seats in the 2004 election. The plurality-at-large voting system was used in 1998 and 2000.

In the 2021 electoral overhaul, the Election Committee constituency was reintroduced, taking 40 of the 90 seats, almost half, of the Legislative Council with plurality-at-large voting system. The electorate is composed of all newly expanded 1,500 members in the Election Committee.

Standing Committees

• House Committee
  • Parliamentary Liaison Subcommittee
• Finance Committee
  • Establishment Subcommittee
  • Public Works Subcommittee
• Public Accounts Committee^[35]
• Committee on Members' Interests
• Committee on Rules of Procedure

Panels

Primacy of President

In a controversial move directed at reining in democratic legislators (most of whom were elected by universal suffrage and six of whose seats had been vacated by a controversial court order of disqualification), amendments to the Rules of Procedure were passed on 15 December 2017 giving sweeping powers to the President to control the business of the legislature. Among them is the power to vet proposed motions and amendments to bills, require legislators to explain them and to reject or merge them. Prior notice must be given of any notice of motion and the President may reconvene the chamber immediately after any failure to meet quorum.^[37]

Passage of Bills

Passage of bills introduced by the government require only a simple majority of votes of the members of the Legislative Council present; whereas passage of motions, bills or amendments to government bills introduced by individual LegCo members shall require a simple majority of votes of each of the two groups of members present: namely members returned by the Election Committee and members returned by functional constituencies and geographical constituencies.^[39]

Motions on amendments to the Basic Law require a two-thirds vote in the Legislative Council, without a specific requirement in each group of constituencies. After passing the council, the Basic Law amendment must obtain the consent of two-thirds of Hong Kong's deputies to the National People's Congress, and also the Chief Executive (the Chief Executive is vested with the veto power). The National People's Congress reserves the sole power to amend the Basic Law.^[12]

Traditionally, the President does not vote. However, this convention is not a constitutional requirement.^[40]