The Professional Commons is an independent, membership-based,

non-profit organisation A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

and

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...

established in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

on 25 March 2007. It is open to all professionals who share the same values.

Mission

The Professional Commons aims at improving the quality of public governance and empowering the community in the policy-making process by harnessing the soft power of responsible professionalism. The Professional Commons' missions are: * To achieve equal and

universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...

; * To monitor government through professional analysis; * To engage with the community in developing public policies; * To express professional views in the pursuit of public interest; and * To uphold core values of professional independence, freedom and integrity. The Professional Commons vow to work to promote matters of significant public interest rather than those of sectoral or trade interests.

History

During the Chief Executive election in March 2007, over 100

Election Committee The Election Committee is the electoral college in Hong Kong that selects the Chief Executive (CE) and, since 2021, elects 40 of the 90 members of the Legislative Council. Established by Annex I of the Basic Law of Hong Kong which states ...

(EC) members from various professional sectors joined hands to advocate a faster pace for democracy. Many of these EC members, together with like-minded professionals, decided afterwards to build on this foundation as an agent for democratisation and good governance. In the 2012 LegCo election, three Professional Commons members were elected to the legislature including Charles Mok in the

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 ...

functional constituency (FC), Kenneth Leung in the

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 ...

FC, and Dennis Kwok, who ran as a Civic Party candidate, in the Legal FC.

Structure

It adopts a network-based governance model and organisational matters are handled by three committees elected from among the members: the Strategy Committee, Management Committee and Communications Committee.The Professional Commons

Issue task group

Members may at any time, subject to the approval of the Strategy Committee, set up an issue task group provided at least 4 members from at least 3 professional sectors have expressed interest to play an active role. All task groups are open to all members. A convenor and a co-convenor, who shall serve as the link with the Strategy Committee, shall be elected from among the members of the relevant task groups.

Leadership

Chairmen

* Charles Mok * Kenneth Leung * Stanley Ng * Paul Zimmerman

Performance in elections

Legislative council elections

References

{{Hong Kong political parties 2007 establishments in Hong Kong Liberal parties in Hong Kong Non-profit organisations based in Hong Kong Political and economic think tanks based in Hong Kong Pro-democracy camp (Hong Kong) Think tanks established in 2007