The Hong Kong Legislative Council members' oath-taking controversy was a series of events surrounding the oaths of office of a dozen pro-democracy and localist camp members-elect of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) on 12 October 2016 which have resulted in the disqualification of six members, Sixtus "Baggio" Leung and Yau Wai-ching of Youngspiration, who were unseated by the court on 15 November 2016, and Leung Kwok-hung, Nathan Law, Yiu Chung-yim and Lau Siu-lai on 14 July 2017.
The pro-democracy members-elect have used the oath-taking ceremonies at each inaugural meeting as a platform of protest since 2004, during which they have held objects or shouted slogans. On 12 October 2016, the inaugural meeting of the 6th Legislative Council, a dozen of members-elect used the occasion to protest, highlighted by the pro-independence Youngspiration legislators, Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching, who asserted "as a member of the Legislative Council, I shall pay earnest efforts in keeping guard over the interests of the Hong Kong nation," displayed a "Hong Kong is not China" banner, and mispronounced "People's Republic of China" as "people's re-fucking of Chee-na". As a result, the oaths of the two, as well as that of Yiu Chung-yim, who also inserted his own words, were invalidated by the LegCo secretary-general Kenneth Chen and the oath of Lau Siu-lai, who spent about ten minutes reading the 80-word oath in extreme slow motion, was invalidated by the LegCo President Andrew Leung.
The controversy escalated when Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen, on 18 October, unprecedentedly launched a judicial review seeking the disqualification of Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching. This was followed by the walkout staged by pro-Beijing legislators to force adjournment and block the pair and Lau Siu-lai from retaking their oaths on the following day after Yiu Chung-yim had retaken his oath. Lau Siu-lai eventually retook her oath on 2 November.
On 7 November 2016, despite the pan-democrats' opposition, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) controversially interpreted Article 104 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong to "clarify" the requirements that the legislators need to swear allegiance to Hong Kong as part of China when they take office, stating that a person "who intentionally reads out words which do not accord with the wording of the oath prescribed by law, or takes the oath in a manner which is not sincere or not solemn" should be barred from taking their public office and cannot retake the oath. As a consequence, the court disqualified Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching on 15 November. The oaths of a dozen of pro-democracy legislators and a few pro-Beijing legislators were also under legal challenges.
On 2 December 2016, the government launched a second legal action against four more pro-democracy legislators, Leung Kwok-hung of the League of Social Democrats, Nathan Law of Demosistō, Yiu Chung-yim and Lau Siu-lai, over their manners at the oath-taking ceremony. As a result, the four legislators were disqualified by the court on 14 July 2017.
Background
According to Article 104 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong, members of the Legislative Council must swear to uphold the Basic Law and swear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. According to the Oaths and Declarations Ordinance, the Legislative Council oath is:
The oath of office ceremony of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) has been the platform of protest of some pro-democracy legislators since 2004, when radical democrat legislator Leung Kwok-hung shouted the slogan "Long live democracy! Long live the people!" before and after delivering the oath in full at the inaugural meeting of the 3rd Legislative Council; Leung's oath at that time was validated by the clerk of the Legislative Council Ricky Fung. Leung kept his practice of protesting at the each oath-taking ceremony and this practice was followed by some other pan-democrats.
In 2012, People Power legislator Wong Yuk-man skipped key words in the oath by coughing at strategic moments when taking the oath and his oath was invalidated by LegCo President Jasper Tsang. He was allowed to retake his oath during the next meeting. Even though he read out part of his second oath in a different tone of voice and shouted "Down with the Hong Kong communist regime, down with Leung Chun-ying" after completing the oath, and was challenged by pro-Beijing legislator Paul Tse for taking the oath in this way, the oath was accepted by the President.
In the 2016 Legislative Council election held on 4 September 2016, six localist candidates with different agendas striving for the "self-determination" of Hong Kong were elected with 19 percent of the total votes even though the Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) had made the unprecedented move to disqualify six other localist nominees (including Hong Kong Indigenous' Edward Leung, who ran in the February's New Territories East by-election) as candidates of the election on the grounds that they supported Hong Kong independence. Leung campaigned for Youngspiration's Sixtus Leung, 30, who stood in the same constituency as a "back up" plan. Leung was duly elected with 37,997 votes. His party colleague, Yau Wai-ching, 25, also won the last seat in Kowloon West with 20,643 votes, becoming the youngest female to be elected to the legislature.
Course of events
Oaths invalidated On 11 October 2016, a day before the inaugural session of the 6th Legislative Council, the government issued a statement warning the members-elect of the Legislative Council to swear to uphold the Basic Law and swear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China as required by the Article 104 of the Basic Law.
On 12 October 2016, five localist and eight pro-democrat legislators used the oath-taking ceremony as a platform of protest as they had in the previous sessions, by either shouting slogans or making extra statements before or after taking their oaths. Leung Kwok-hung of the League of Social Democrats (LSD), who had used the oath-taking ceremony as a platform of protest since 2004, held a yellow umbrella symbolising the Umbrella Revolution with many words thereon, including "ending one-party rule", and a paper board showing the words "NPC 831 decision" and a cross on it. He paused many times while reading the oath and tore a piece of paper with the words "NPC 831 decision". Newcomers such as Nathan Law of Demosistō had raised his tone when swearing allegiance to China, sounding like he was asking a question, while Lau Siu-lai paused for six seconds in between every word in order to, she said, make the oath meaningless.
However, the oaths of the independent pan-democrat Yiu Chung-yim, Youngspiration's Sixtus Leung and Yau Wai-ching were invalidated by LegCo secretary-general Kenneth Chen. Yiu added phrases such as "universal suffrage" immediately after his oath. Leung and Yau pledged allegiance to the "Hong Kong nation" before they took the oath while displaying a banner that read "Hong Kong is not China". They also pronounced "People's Republic of China" as "people's re-fucking of Chee-na", a variation of the term Shina, which was used by Japan to refer to China and was deemed derogatory since the Second World War, three times. The three oaths were declared invalid, with the effect that the trio could not vote in the subsequent election of the LegCo President, in which Andrew Leung of the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong (BPA) was controversially elected.
Condemnation The Hong Kong SAR government denounced the duo for modifying their oaths and hurting the feelings of Chinese people, labelling their actions as "in violation of the dignity expected of LegCo members, or even spoke or acted in an offensive manner that harmed the feelings of our compatriots." Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said many people were "angry and disappointed" over the oath-taking process. "This seriously affects the feelings between Hong Kong and mainland people," he added. China's state media Xinhua quoted a "person-in-charge" of the Central People's Government's Liaison Office in Hong Kong on 14 October as expressing "strong anger and condemnation" over the two legislators' "despicable words and actions" which "has challenged the nation's dignity and severely hurt the feelings of all Chinese people and overseas Chinese, including Hong Kong compatriots."
Sixtus Leung blamed his "Ap Lei Chau accent" as the reason of his pronunciation of "China" as "Chee-na" and the alleged profanity. He also argued that the word "Chee-na" is not offensive as "Dr Sun Yat-sen used the term 'Chee-na' when he was lobbying overseas." He also argued that the "Hong Kong is not China" slogan was a factual statement, "just like 'apple is not orange'." His action and explanation were attacked in an opinion article written for South China Morning Post as "kindergarten-like". A group of Ap Lei Chau residents issued a joint statement rejecting his excuse, saying that "[Sixtus] Leung Chung-hang's terrible action has made those of us who were born and bred in Ap Lei Chau angry."
On the other hand, secretary-general Kenneth Chen's decision to invalidate the three legislators' oaths was questioned. "Secretary-general ruled the oaths as invalid without consulting legal advice," Lau Siu-lai, elected on her platform for self-determination, said. "It was an unjust decision and the subsequent meeting, in which the president was elected, was therefore unlawful." The pro-Beijing camp, on the other hand, sent a petition to the LegCo president asking him to also invalidate the oaths of Nathan Law and Lau Siu-lai. Lau's oath was later invalidated by President Andrew Leung on 18 October along with that of pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) legislator Wong Ting-kwong (who missed the words "Hong Kong" when reading the oath) after Leung consulted lawyers. The five legislators would be allowed to retake their oaths at the next meeting on 19 October.
On 17 October, Sixtus Leung said he and Yau Wai-ching would consider compromising by retaking their oaths properly on the next meeting on 19 October to keep their seats, but both insisted they had done nothing wrong and brushed off mounting calls for an apology and their resignation, as well as threats of legal action against them. They claimed that the word "Chee-na" was referring to the regime but not to the people or culture.
Various pro-Beijing and Beijing-friendly organisations ran more than a dozen adverts in local newspapers, urging the duo to apologise or even resign, including one statement issued by more than 200 historians and educators, including former chief curator of the Hong Kong History Museum Joseph Ting Sun-pao.
Government's legal action
On 18 October night, just hours before the next LegCo meeting, the Hong Kong government took the unprecedented step of mounting a legal challenge to disqualify two Youngspiration legislators on grounds that their actions in the oath-taking process had contravened the Basic Law. Johnny Mok Shiu-luen, SC, representing Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen accused the duo of "sending a message to the world and also to the public that we can function as a member of LegCo without pledging allegiance to the HKSAR of the People's Republic of China," Mok said. Jat Sew-tong, SC, acting for LegCo President Andrew Leung argued that the government's move was a "serious deprivation of the constitutional rights" of the two legislators-elect. Justice Thomas Au Hing-cheung allowed the government's application for a judicial review, but denied the government an interim injunction to bar the pair from retaking their oaths on the next meeting. The hearing on the application was set for 3 November.