CHRIS LAU CHRIS.LAU@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 09 September, 2015, 2:08pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 09 September, 2015, 2:28pm
Youngspiration spokesman Donald Chow Sai-kit hands out questionnaires to residents in Kennedy Town, where he intends to stand in the district council elections. Photo: May Tse
A magistrate has demanded that two Hong Kong government agencies allow the courts more time to investigate voter-related complaints, as the workload of more than 1,000 cases processed over the past three days is “close to absurd”.
Acting Chief Magistrate Andrew Ma Hon-cheung, one of three Sha Tin Court magistrates assigned as electoral revising officers, said they were given only September 2 to 10 to look through all 1,500 complaints filed against registered voters.
“In nine days, the court has to notify the respondents, conduct the hearing, and process the review lodged by the respondents. It’s not only unreasonable, but close to absurd,” the magistrate said this morning, calling the schedule shocking.
The trio are tasked with reviewing notices of objection that the public has submitted to the Registration and Electoral Office, which passes them on to the court.
The magistrates are empowered to remove names from the register – thereby stripping people of their voting rights in the November district council elections – if they find the complaints substantiated.
Ma asked the Department of Justice and Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau today to push for regulatory amendments so as to extend the overall time frame for finalising the electoral roll by seven weeks.
He urged members of the Legislative Council to “support the amendments wholeheartedly” as this involved the fairness of an election.
He noted the registration office was given only 29 days in July – up to July 31 – to process about 180,000 new voter registrations. The public then had until August 25 to lodge complaints for the office to investigate.
The magistrate said the short amount of time alloted for the process was not only unfair to the registration office, but to the court and the public as well.
Ma praised the staff at the office, but expressed concern the little time given to them could lead to imperfections in their investigations that, in turn, limited the court in the assistance it could offer.
The accuracy of the office’s investigations and the time allowed for court processing were paramount to fair polls, he added.
He called for the office to be granted two extra weeks to sort out new registrations, and for office investigations and court proceedings to be extended by five weeks.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1856640/over-1000-court-cases-three-days-hong-kong-magistrate-says
