(review) Political Accountability in Hong Kong: Myth or Reality?
Political Accountability in Hong Kong: Myth or Reality?
This article assesses the practice of political accountability in Hong Kong.
Theoretical review
Political accountability
Ministers are selected by those elected to comprise a team of rule (Dogan 1989).
The concept of responsible government in a liberal democracy signifies that ministers are responsive to public opinions, that their decisions should be prudent and mutually consistent, and that they are answerable to the electorate and responsible for their actions (Marshall 1989).
Generalizing the ministerial system as one that contains politicians as cabinet ministers who constitute the top echelon of the government, this analysis defines the term ‘minister’ as a legitimate representative who acquires a mandate through election or political appointment by the elected head of government to head a ministry (Blondel 1985).
Therefore, the basic concept of the ministerial system is the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, meaning that ‘the government is accountable through its ministers
to the parliament’ (Woodhouse 1994).
The individual accountability of a minister for the work of his department; that is, the minister has the ‘entire responsibility to parliament for the department’s functions, including any parts of its work for which the immediate, day-to-day responsibility is entrusted to subordinate ministers' (Turpin 1989:62).
The collective accountability of the cabinet for the policies of the government as a whole; that is, the whole cabinet must meaningfully accept responsibility for its overall direction and impact as a government (Sutherland 1991).
Ministerial accountability
‘An arrangement of correction and punishment including dismissal of officials’(Finer 1941)
‘Methods by which a public official fulfills its duties and obligations; and the process by which the public official is required to account for such actions’ (Jabbra and Dwivedi 1988)
Political accountability consists of five elements: adherence to political orders; adherence to organisational rules; adherence to legal processes; adherence to professional codes of conduct; and adherence to public interests. (Jabbra and Dwivedi 1988)
Two sense in political accountability, the appropriate sense (public officials acting responsibly and responsively); and the cause sense (public officials being subject to controls that hold them accountable for their performance) (Thynne and Goldring 1987)
Three key elements: of being answerable to the electorate, responsive to public opinions, and responsible for one’s actions.
Operational level
five types of action for holding ministers politically accountable. They are redirectory actions (ministers redirect questions from members of parliament), reporting actions (ministers report to parliament what has happened), explanatory actions (ministers explain their actions), amendatory actions (ministers amend their policies and departments’ shortcomings), and sacrificial actions (ministers resign for personal or departmental faults).(Woodhouse 1994)
the areas for which ministers are accountable. These include: the policies of their departments; the framework within which those policies are delivered; the resources allocated; implementation decisions; their responses to major failures or expressions of parliamentary or public concern in terms of demonstrating what action they have taken to correct a mistake and prevent its recurrence; and personal conduct.
Operational framework of Political Accountability
An Evaluation of the Political Accountability System in Hong Kong
Official
Reasons for the reforms
Tung gave three reasons: 1. response to a series of policy failures and scandals in HK following the political handover. 2. enhance the government’s performance by co-opting external experts into it. 3. increase accountability by appointing political appointees as ministers.
Hidden agenda encounters Tung’s reasons: 1. to boost or regain the legitimacy of the government by making reforms. 2. to reduce the political power and importance of senior civil servants in the governance process. 3. to increase Tung’s political power by replacing civil servants with his like-minded aides in the Executive Council.
For Donald Tsang, the main reason was to achieve “strong governance”, erase the poor image of the government. The second reason is that Tsang wanted to consolidate his political power. Emphasising the exclusive-led principle.
Apply the Framework and analysis on three aspects, Political Mandate, Collective Accountability, Individual Accountability.
Political mandate
Low degree of representativeness of the bureau directors in Hong Kong.
People had doubts over both the ministerial system and the representativeness.
Collective Accountability
The Executive Council works like a loose coalition of different interest groups that do not share the same political ideology, party principles, policy values, or priorities.
No evidence has been found proving that the Executive Councils under the leadership of both Tung and Tsang have worked with unity and unanimity.
Individual Accountability
Only 2 of 14 ministers in Tung’s cabinet openly and clearly made a commitment to resign upon receiving a vote of no confidence from the Legislative Council.
lack of political will among the political leaders to enforce individual accountability.
Conclusion
In short, political accountability could exist in non-democratic regimes under two conditions:
1. a strong political will to enforce political accountability
2. effective policies formulated
according to public views. Unfortunately, these two conditions are not found in Hong Kong.
Political accountability in Hong Kong is a myth rather than a reality because it suffers not only from structural weaknesses (absence of a democratic setting), but also from weak political leadership in its enforcement and from ineffective policies that deviate from public opinion.
References
Blondel, J. (1985). Government ministers in the contemporary world. SAGE Publications.
Dogan, M. (1989). Pathways to power: Selecting rulers in pluralist democracies. Westview Press.
Finer, H. (2018). Administrative responsibility in democratic government. Classics of Administrative Ethics, 5-26. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429501555-2
Jabbra, J. G., & Dwivedi, O. P. (1989). Public service accountability: A comparative perspective.
Lam, J. T. (2009). Political accountability in Hong Kong: Myth or reality? Australian Journal of Public Administration, 68, S73-S83. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8500.2009.00623.x
Marshall, G. (1989). Ministerial responsibility. Oxford University Press, USA.
Sutherland, S. L. (1991). Responsible government and ministerial responsibility: Every reform is its own problem. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 24(1), 91-120. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0008423900013433
Thynne, I. and J. Goldring. 1987. Accountability and Control: Government Officials and the Exercise of Power. Sydney: Law Book Company.
Woodhouse, D. (1994). Ministers and Parliament: Accountability in theory and practice. Oxford University Press.
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