Every now and then, Hong Kong’s Legislative Council reminds us of grade school. Just like in a school year, lawmakers have historically enjoyed a summer recess – of two to three months at the end of July – before beginning the next legislative year in October.
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To ensure that school could still be out for the summer, lawmakers voted in 2023 to abolish a rule of procedure requiring that two consecutive meetings are not held more than six weeks apart in the same legislative year. Summer was saved – by lawmakers undoing the rules.
In 2022, former lawmaker Wong Kwok-hing urged the chief executive to cancel the recess altogether. In 2023, commentator Chris Wat Wing-yin called the arrangement ridiculous and wondered why not a single member of the expanded 90-person Legco had proposed its cancellation.
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Every time the subject is brought up, lawmakers react with indignance. It’s not a break from work but an adjournment of meetings, they say; they don’t stop working because there are other meetings and events to attend and people to meet; and, some of these people they need to meet require overseas travel as lawmakers work to tell good stories of Hong Kong, they also say.