The Professionals Guild () was a
pro-democracy parliamentary group 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 ...
. All legislators in the group were elected through professional sectors in the
Functional Constituencies. The group was active between the
2016 Legislative Council election and the mass-resignation of pro-democracy legislators in 2020.
Overview
The Professionals Guild in Hong Kong was formed in 2016 by six pro-democracy functional constituency legislators after the
2016 Legislative Council election, which saw the pro-democrats increase their seats in the professional sectors. Membership of the group was not mutually exclusive against other political party membership.
It became one of the four main pro-democracy parliamentary groups in the Legislative Council in the 2016-20 session, the others being the
Democratic Party,
Civic Party and Council Front formed by directly elected pro-democracy individuals.
At its peak, the group held seven seats in the legislature at its peak with
Dennis Kwok of the
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 ...
constituency,
Kenneth Leung of
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 ...
,
Charles Mok of
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 ...
,
Edward Yiu of
Architectural, Surveying, Planning and Landscape,
Ip Kin-yuen of
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 ...
,
Shiu Ka-chun of
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 ...
and
Joseph Lee of
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 ...
.
[隔牆有耳：李國麟加盟專業議政](_blank)
2016-10-19 蘋果日報 Edward Yiu was disqualified in 2017 due to the
oath-taking controversy; he ran in a geographical constituency in consequent by-elections but lost.
One of the major tasks of the group was coordinating the pro-democracy "Democrats 300+" election campaign in the
2016 Election Committee Subsector elections. The victory in the Legislative Council functional constituencies in the 2016 election encouraged the pro-democrats to take a more progressive strategy in the professional sector, in which the pro-democrats traditionally had more advantages.
專業議政與民主派專業界別開會 協調選委會選舉
/ref>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 ...
decision that LegCo Members should be disqualified if they support Hong Kong independence, refuse to acknowledge China's sovereignty, ask foreign forces to interfere in the city's affairs or in other ways threaten national security. Kwok and Leung were amongst 4 LegCo members who were dismissed; all are considered moderates and have never publicly supported Hong Kong independence. Dennis Kwok said "If observing due process and fighting for democracy can lead to being disqualified, it isqualificationwill be my honour," Following this 15 other pro-democracy LegCo members have resigned between November and December 2020, including all remaining Professionals Guild LegCo members at the time.
Legco representatives
The Professionals Guild held seven seats in LegCo at its peak in 2016-17.
See also
* Professional Commons
* Professional Forum
External links
Professionals Guild's facebook page
References
{{Hong Kong political parties
2016 establishments in Hong Kong
Liberal parties in Hong Kong
Political parties established in 2016