New spat between Sou, appointed lawmakers

Lawmaker Sulu Sou’s depiction of the Legislation Assembly (AL) as “trash” will be discussed by the AL’s House Rule Committee following a protest made by Vong Hin Fai which was accepted by the AL president, Ho Iat Seng.

The “AL should be the miniature of the society, and it should represent the public in executing the legislation and in supervising. […] It is indeed unnecessary to keep the government-appointed lawmaker system, which belongs to the colonization period, and to let the AL continue to be known by residents as the ‘trash assembly,’” said Sou during yesterday’s AL plenary meeting.

Vong Hin Fai, a member of the AL’s House Rules Committee, expressed his disapproval of Sou’s comments. “Regarding Sou’s expression, I think it constitutes an insult to the AL. I express my disapproval,” declared Vong.

AL Chairman Ho Iat Seng proposed to leave the matter to the AL’s House Rules Committee for further discussion.

Yesterday, Sulu Sou voiced these remarks as part of his criticism of Macau’s government-appointed lawmaker system.

That “the government-appointed lawmaker system, [according to which] the Chief Executive has seven votes [to appoint seven lawmakers in total] is the biggest insult to democracy,” protested Sou.

In Sou’s opinion, the “ridicule” of the CE-appointed lawmaker system lies in two functions of these lawmakers themselves: to protect the CE who appointed them and to supervise the directly-elected lawmakers who supervise the government.

“Lawmakers appointed by CE are the sole responsibility of the CE, which goes against the law regulating that lawmakers, regardless of whether they were elected or appointed, should represent the SAR and the public’s interest,” he said.   

According to Sou’s calculations, seven lawmakers can submit a total of more than 1,400 inquiries to the government in four years. However, the seven lawmakers from the last term only delivered three and a half inquiries (one of them was co-submitted with an indirectly-elected lawmaker).

“Last [AL] meeting, the CE appointed lawmakers ganged up against one directly elected lawmaker [himself]. It was indeed amusing. The public understands deeply that it is just a revenge of the political system’s vested interest, and its purpose is to suppress the voice that is authorized by the people, and to suppress [the lawmaker] from continuing to criticize the government’s administration,” said Sou.

“Myself and many residents are firm at requesting the cancellation of the system, and will not support maintaining the system because of the individual quality of CE-appointed lawmakers,” said Sou.  JZ