But *why* tell lawmakers not to comment?

HKFP op-ed asks why lawmakers have been advised to keep quiet on the Office of the Ombudsman’s deletion of online archives…

…local media reported that authorities silenced LegCo on this issue. Authorities sent out “warm reminders” that LegCo members should not “follow up” or “comment” on the Ombudsman saga.

This gives the impression that LegCo is simply an extension of the government, speaking for the government only. What of its checking role? 

…The Ombudsman’s deleted reports saga tells us that Legco has lost some capacity to hold authorities to account. It tells us that officials expect Legco to speak for the government and not for the people of Hong Kong.

Yet, LegCo members should be able to speak out on issues such as this. Authorities should understand that speaking out is not “attacking” the government but trying to improve local governance. LegCo members’ constitutional role includes checking the government.

Authorities should relax the gag order on LegCo members so that they can better serve the people. This will build trust in our institutions, which is in everyone’s interest.

Of course the new-look legislature is expected to ‘speak for the government’. If the authorities wanted an assembly that represented the people and checked the executive, they wouldn’t have abolished the freely elected seats and created an ‘all-patriots’ LegCo. There are dozens of issues today’s lawmakers don’t talk about – from construction site safety, to over-tourism, to futile checks on Japanese seafood, to tax audits of independent media, to never-ending NatSec arrests and trials. 

Perhaps a more pertinent question is why the Ombudsman’s Office decided to remove these online records. Did a highly paid bureaucrat order the deletion because he thought all the files were slowing computers down? In which case the only reason lawmakers are being told to keep quiet about it is because the government finds it embarrassing. Or is this part of a new style of government? Are old election results, LegCo votes, Auditor’s reports, budgets, demographic data and other records going to become harder to find? If you wanted to bring about a system of increasingly tight control, making such information harder to access would help the authorities create new official narratives about the past. 

Today’s competition: Spot the plain-clothes cop. This Tweet claims there are 10 undercover police in the 12-second video clip panning out across from Sogo in Causeway Bay as June 4 approaches. If the number is correct, I think I got them all – on the third viewing. One is 98% obscured by another at the beginning and a couple of probables pass by with their backs to you. It’s the hair and the trying-too-hard-to-look anonymous (and the overt and bored hanging around). Fun for all the family.