Deputy President, I declare that I am a member of the Council of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (“the Council”).

The legislative process of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Amendment) Bill 2023 (“the Bill”) commenced on 16 December 2022. At that time, we submitted a working draft to the Panel on Education for consultation. Today, on 1 November 2023, the Bill is here for Second and Third Readings. The entire legislative process took less than one year thanks to the strong support rendered by various parties.

First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prof Priscilla LEUNG, Chairman of the Bills Committee, for her strong leadership during the meetings of the Bills Committee by virtue of her thorough understanding and insights of the relevant issues, which enabled effective and smooth completion of the scrutiny of the Bill during the summer break of the Legislative Council (“LegCo”), so that the Second Reading debate on the Bill can be resumed today.

I would also like to thank other colleagues in the Bills Committee for their active participation in the scrutiny of the Bill and their efforts in faithfully reflecting the views of various sectors, which made the scrutiny a fruitful exercise.

Furthermore, I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to the Bills Committee for supporting the Bill.

The Bill has also received supported by the Administration. I would like to thank Secretary Dr CHOI Yuk-lin for her speech just now.

The primary objective of the Bill is to reorganize the Council in order to fulfil the important tasks of reviewing the governing and management structure of UGC-funded institutions to achieve good governance as called for by UGC’s Sutherland Report in 2002 and Newby Report in 2016. One of the goals is to achieve a ratio of 2:1 between external members (non full-time employees or students of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (“CUHK”)) and internal members (full-time employees or students of CUHK) in the Council.

Secondly, for the purpose of improving the governance of CUHK, the Bill proposes, among others, reforms to the methods of employing or appointing the Vice-Chancellor, the Provost and the Treasurer of CUHK, and the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of the Council; expressly provides for the role and status of the Masters of the five additional Colleges under its collegiate system; and revises the quorum at the meeting of the Council.

In fact, in the 20 years after the release of the Sutherland Report by UGC, CUHK has gone through five Council Chairmen, four Vice-Chancellors and two unsuccessful attempts to reorganize the Council. The management of the university was also unjustifiably implicated because of that. Even technical updating of The Chinese University of Hong Kong Ordinance and the Statutes of The Chinese University of Hong Kong was forced to stand still for more than 10 years. This is an absolutely ridiculous situation for any normal thinking person. The governance of CUHK is completely out of touch with its remarkable academic achievements in recent years. On the contrary, the issue of governance has become an obstacle for CUHK to advance and created many problems. I believe many of us here today and various sectors of the community share this view.

This situation cannot and should not continue. Some people criticized us for taking the initiative to present the Bill as going beyond our duties, but in fact they are turning a blind eye to the ridiculous existing situation. We reiterate that the purpose of this Members’ bill is to take forward and implement the administrative reforms that the Council should have made but failed to do so in the past 20 years.

Deputy President, the Bills Committee has held three meetings on the Bill.  I sincerely thank the representatives of CUHK for attending the meetings, in particular, Chairman of the Council Prof John Y CHAI, Vice-Chairman of the Council Dr Norman CHAN and Provost Prof Alan CHAN who gave frank replies to members’ questions without any concealment, thus making it possible for the meetings to be conducted efficiently.

I am particularly grateful to Dr Norman CHAN for chairing the Taskforce on the Review of the Size and Composition of the CUHK Council (“the Taskforce”). Under his chairmanship, the Taskforce has consulted 300 000 stakeholders via email and held two consultation sessions on CUHK campus within four months to gauge the views of stakeholders. Subsequently, a pertinent report was submitted and endorsed by the Council, which provided a solid basis for the proposals made in the Bill. The three of us have taken on board the relevant views in the Bill.

Deputy President, from the incubation stage to today’s Third Reading of the Bill, I sincerely thank the other two Members, Mr LAU Kwok-fan and Mr TANG Ka-piu who jointly introduced the Bill with me, for their active participation in the work this time.

(THE PRESIDENT resumed the Chair)

Another person that I would like to thank is Ms Alice MAK, the Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs. She was one of the LegCo representatives in the Council before being appointed as Secretary. During the incubation stage of the Bill, she has put forward a lot of valuable opinions. Subsequently, Mr TANG Ka-piu took over Secretary MAK’s membership in the Council. Although taking over the job midway, Mr TANG Ka-piu spent a lot of time to understand the structural problems of the Council and was very committed to the amendment exercise. In particular, when CUHK management claimed that they would refuse to pay the some $700,000 gazette fee for the Bill, Mr TANG immediately told me that he would shoulder his share even if he had to dig into his daughter’s dowry (Laughter). I was really touched by that.

President, a Members’ bill initiated by Members to reorganize the Council may seem logical, but in reality, there are a lot of difficulties. In fact, after two unsuccessful attempts to reorganize the Council, a huge amount of information on the reorganization proposal were left to be sorted out. They involved complicated issues in relation to the operation of CUHK. One can imagine the complexity of the legal and technical issues arising therefrom. It is therefore intimidating to introduce a Members’ bill under these circumstances. Hence, I have to thank the staff of the Legal Service Division of the Legislative Council Secretariat. Without their assistance in reviewing and refining the content of the Bill, it would be almost impossible to introduce a bill that meets all the requirements in terms of content and format. Meanwhile, I also thank the staff of the Council Business Division for constantly giving us reminders with regard to the procedures for the introduction of bills.

Of course, I also have to thank the staff of the Law Drafting Division of the Department of Justice for taking the trouble to provide us with professional advice in the early stage of the drafting of the Bill, so that the Bill meets the stringent requirements of the Rules of Procedure and law drafting.

The staff in my office also had to deal with a lot of additional work because of the Bill. In particular, my legal adviser had to make a number of revisions after collecting views from various parties during the drafting process. I am very grateful for his help.

President, during the introduction of the Bill, the three of us have faced numerous unwarranted attacks. However, we have also received encouragement from various members of the community, both known and unknown to us, and whether or not they are affiliated with CUHK. They expressed their support to the Bill. I am very pleased with this and believe that the Bill is firmly rooted in broad support from the community.

After the passage of the Bill, the Council will enter a transitional period. It will be reorganized in accordance with the law. We look forward to the resolution of the governance issues of CUHK, so that it can take a big leap forward for further advancement.

I also have to thank the more than 10 colleagues who have spoken just now for their support and encouragement.

With these remarks, President, I urge Members to support and endorse the passage of the Bill and the amendments to be moved later on. Thank you everyone. Thank you, President.