In the

Legislative Council of Hong Kong The Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, colloquially known as LegCo, is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Hong Kong. It sits under People's Republic of China, China's "one country, two systems" c ...

, a functional constituency is a professional or

special interest group A special interest group (SIG) is a community within a larger organization with a shared interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular f ...

that elects members to the legislature. Eligible voters in a functional constituency may include

natural person In jurisprudence, a natural person (also physical person in some Commonwealth countries, or natural entity) is a person (in legal meaning, i.e., one who has its own legal personality) that is an individual human being, distinguished from the br ...

s as well as other designated legal entities such as organisations and corporations. (See:

legal person In law, a legal person is any person or legal entity that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, lawsuit, sue and be sued, ownership, own property, and so on. The reason for the term "''le ...

ality)

History

The concept of functional constituencies (FC) in Hong Kong was first developed in the release of "Green Paper: A Pattern of District Administration in Hong Kong" on 18 July 1984 when indirect elections were introduced to the Legislative Council for the first time. The paper suggested that the Legislative Council create 24 seats with 12 seats from different professional interest groups. The 11 original functional constituencies created in 1985 were: * First Commercial ( HKGCC) * Second Commercial ( CGCC) * First Industrial ( FHKI) * Second Industrial ( CMAHK) *

Financial Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

( HKAB) * Labour (2 seats) *

Social Services Social services are a range of public services intended to provide support and assistance towards particular groups, which commonly include the disadvantaged. Also available amachine-converted HTML They may be provided by individuals, private and i ...

( HKCSS) *

Medical Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

( HKMA) * Teaching *

Legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

* Engineering, Architectural, Surveying and Planning In 1988, the Financial constituency was enlarged into Financial and

Accountancy Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activities and conveys ...

constituencies and the Medical constituency was enlarged into Medical and

Health Care Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

constituencies respectively. In 1991, the functional constituencies were more developed. With 9 directly elected geographical constituencies created, 20 functional constituencies consisting of 11 types of industry in which 7 new functional constituencies including Heung Yee Kuk, Urban Council and Regional Council were also set up. The 7 new functional constituencies added in 1991 were: *

Engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

* Real Estate and Construction *

Tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

Financial Services Financial services are service (economics), economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of tertiary sector of the economy, service sector activities, especially as concerns finan ...

Urban Council The Urban Council (UrbCo) was a municipal council in Hong Kong responsible for municipal services on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon (including New Kowloon). These services were provided by the council's executive arm, the Urban Services ...

* Regional Council *

Rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically desc ...

In 1992, Chris Patten suggested additional political reform adding nine additional functional constituencies with a much expanded voter base to the existing system. The changes were implemented in the 1995 legislative election. The 9 new functional constituencies added in 1995 were: * Primary Production, Power and Construction * Textiles and Garment *

Manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

* Import and Export * Wholesale and Retail * Hotels and Catering * Transport and Communication * Financing, Insurance, Real Estate and Business Services * Community, Social and Personal Services After transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, there were 28 functional constituencies consisting of the following. Corporate voting was restored after it was abolished in 1995. It reduced the number of eligible voters by almost 90 percent, from over 1.1 million in 1995 to fewer than 140,000 in 1998: * Heung Yee Kuk * Agriculture and Fisheries *

Insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to protect ...

Transport Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

Education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

Health Services Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

* Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape * Labour (3 seats) *

Social Welfare Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance p ...

* Real Estate and Construction *

Commercial (First) The Commercial (First) functional constituency () is a functional constituency in the elections for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong first created in 1985. The constituency is composed of corporate members of the Hong Kong General Chambe ...

Commercial (Second) The Commercial (Second) functional constituency () is a functional constituency in the elections for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong first created in 1985. The constituency is composed of 421 corporates members of the Chinese General Cham ...

Industrial (First) The Industrial (First) functional constituency () is a functional constituency in the elections for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong first created in 1985. The constituency is composed of corporate members of the Federation of Hong Kong ...

Industrial (Second) The Industrial (Second) functional constituency () is a functional constituency in the elections for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong first created in 1985. It was one of the 12 original functional constituency seats created for the first ...

Finance Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

* Sports, Performing Arts, Culture and Publication * Import and Export * Textiles and Garment * Wholesale and Retail *

Information Technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

* * Regional Council* The Labour constituency returns 3 seats and the others return one each. By 2000, the seat held by Urban Council and Regional Council were dissolved by Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa, the two seats were replaced by

Catering Catering is the business of providing food services at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio. History of catering The earliest account of major service ...

and District Council. The District Council would be renamed to District Council (First) by 2012, as a result of the addition of a special Functional Constituency having candidates from District Council but with a different range of electors, named

District Council (Second) The District Council (Second) functional constituency () was a functional constituency in the elections for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong which was created in the 2012 constitutional reform package. It was the largest functional constitu ...

. In 2021, the

National People's Congress The National People's Congress (NPC) is the highest organ of state power of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The NPC is the only branch of government in China, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs from the Sta ...

initiated a decision to change the electoral rule in Hong Kong. As a result of this decision, the five

seats were abolished alongside the District Council (First) and

constituencies, while

was merged with

to form the Medical and Health Service FC. Three new constituencies were created, namely the Commercial (Third), the Technology and Innovation, 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 (constituency), 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. The following table charts the evolution of functional constituencies of the LegCo:

Present

Under the 2021 Hong Kong electoral changes, 28 functional constituencies (FC) return 30 members. The Labour Functional Constituency returns three members by

plurality block voting Plurality block voting is a type of block voting method for multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of seats to be filled. The candidates with the most votes are elected. The usual result when the candidates div ...

. The other FCs return one member each with

first-past-the-post voting First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...

. The electoral base is non-uniform, and there may be institutional votes or individual votes. Fourteen seats were uncontested in 2008; of the 16 contested seats, the number of electors, corporate and individuals combined, ranged from between 112 and 52,894 voters. Four of the FC legislators – mostly those returned in fiercely contested elections – are aligned with the parties which support universal suffrage; two are independent and the rest (24) are pro-government. The

Standing Committee of the National People's Congress The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) is the permanent body of the National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. It exercises the powers of the NPC when it is not in s ...

(NPCSC) refers to the participation of the business block vote in the affairs of Hong Kong as "balanced participation". On 26 April 2004, the NPCSC published its decision that: In 2021, the Government published details of the electoral base of the functional constituencies as follows:

Criticisms

Pro-democracy supporters criticise the functional constituency system for giving a minority too much power and influence. The right of corporations and legal entities to vote is also controversial, as it gives some individuals multiple votes. For example, in 1998, Sino Group chairman Robert Ng and companies he controlled held roughly 3-4% of the votes in the real estate constituency, according to an analysis by the '' Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor''; they described this as being equivalent in voting power to 15,940 people in a geographical constituency. In most functional constituencies, the entire body of eligible voters comprises legal entities that are not natural persons. This is known as corporate voting. In 2009, there were applications for

judicial review Judicial review is a process under which a government's executive, legislative, or administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. In a judicial review, a court may invalidate laws, acts, or governmental actions that are in ...

to challenge the legality of corporate voting on the grounds that it contravened the right to vote enshrined in Article 26 of the Basic Law or was discriminatory in nature. Mr. Justice Andrew Cheung (as the Chief Justice then was) dismissed the applications, emphasising that his judgment was solely concerned with the

constitutionality In constitutional law, constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applic ...

of corporate voting rather than the political wisdom of corporate voting or functional constituencies. There have been calls to abolish the functional constituencies from pan democrats. The May 2010 by-election was triggered by the resignation of 5 pan-democrats from the

Legislative Council A legislative council is the legislature, or one of the legislative chambers, of a nation, colony, or subnational division such as a province or state. It was commonly used to label unicameral or upper house legislative bodies in the Brit ...

who put themselves up for re-election to the Legislative Council. The 'Five Constituencies Referendum' concept to use a by-election as a de facto referendum on universal suffrage and the abolition of functional constituencies was hatched by the League of Social Democrats.

Reform proposals

Following the consultations on the 2009 political reform package, where an additional five legislative seats for District Councils were proposed (in addition to Geographical seats) the government unveiled the revised package in mid-April 2010. It was proposed that the five additional Legco seats for the district council constituencies will be elected by proportional representation instead of block voting.Lee, Diana, (15 April 2010)
'Grab this golden chance'
, ''The Standard'' With the proposals looking likely to be vetoed, the Democratic Party said they would support the measures if the five new District Council functional seats, and the one existing seat, would return candidates nominated by district councillors and elected by all registered voters.Leung, Ambrose and Cheung, Gary (1 June 2010). "Democrats seek deal for support of reforms", ''South China Morning Post''

References

External links