Leaders of Hong Kong widened their legal fight against the city’s fledgling independence movement on Friday, targeting four more lawmakers over oaths taken at a Legislative Council swearing-in ceremony in October.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英) and Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen (袁國強) began the action on Friday after lawmakers Sixtus “Baggio” Leung (梁頌恆) and Yau Wai-ching (游蕙禎) lost a legal appeal over their disqualification, the government said in a statement.
The government proceedings seek “to declare their oaths purportedly taken as invalid and their office as now vacant,” the government said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
Beijing is alarmed about the growing appeal of independence and self-determination in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula, allowing it wide-ranging freedoms, a separate legal system and specifying universal suffrage as an eventual goal.
The latest move came after Beijing staged a rare interpretation of Hong Kong’s Basic Law early last month to effectively bar democratically elected Leung and Yau from taking office.
Lau and Leung pledged allegiance to the “Hong Kong nation” and displayed a banner declaring “Hong Kong is not China” during a swearing-in ceremony for the Legislative Council in October.
While their oaths were aborted before they were disqualified, the latest action targets lawmakers who have already taken office.
They include Legislative Councilor Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄), a veteran activist known across the territory as “Long-hair.”
The others are younger lawmakers Edward Yiu (姚松炎), Lau Siu-lai (劉小麗) and Nathan Law (羅冠聰), the government said.
The government is challenging the actions of Legislative Council President Andrew Leung (梁智鴻), to accept, or allow them to re-take, their oaths.
In the statement, the government said it had a constitutional responsibility to uphold the Basic Law and that the action was in the public interest.
“The government stresses that the decision to initiate legal proceedings was purely a decision based on legal ... consideration, without any political consideration,” it added.
Senior democratic figures are warning of a popular backlash against Leung Chun-ying, whom they accuse of using the independence issue to wage a legal “coup” against long-standing democratic forces, on behalf of Beijing.
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