The Importance Of Political Accountability In Hong Kong

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Political Accountability is regarded a necessary condition for all political systems, and can be defined as “a process of being called to account to some authority for one’s actions and involves both answerability and taking responsibility”. Bearing responsibility, as the stronger form of accountability requires officials to resign from office when a serious mistake is committed; while answerability, as the weaker form of accountability and the seemingly more usual case in Hong Kong, does not require office holders to bear responsibility. It does however, require the official who made the mistake to explain and defend their actions when questioned on forums such as committee meetings, news conferences, and the Legislative Council (Legco). …show more content…

It essentially deals with the appointments of the fourteen principal officials within the government. In 2008, Donald Tsang proposed an extension of the POAS to including the appointment and roles of the Deputy Directors of Bureaus and political assistants, as the fourteen principal officers were deemed “too thin” to engage in communication and liaison matters. Applying elements of the traditional agency theory put forward by Horn, the POAS will be described and evaluated in this essay. It is concluded that the implementation of the POAS is ineffective in bringing a more accountable government for Hong Kong, as evidenced by…. Traditional Agency …show more content…

This system mainly deals with the appointment of fourteen Principal Officials who are selected from both inside or outside the civil service. These fourteen positions include the three Secretaries, namely the Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Secretary for Justice; and eleven Bureau Directors e.g. the Secretary for Education, the Secretary for Transport and Housing and so on. These officials are also joined by five additional Principal Officials who were identified as civil servants under the Basic Law Article 48(5) i.e. the Commissioner against Corruption, the Director of Audit, the Director of Immigration, the Commissioner of Police and the Commissioner of Customs and Excise, whereby their conditions of service remain the same. Under the POAS, the Chief Executive has the right to first nominate candidates that he thinks fit for the fourteen Political Officials posts, to the Central People’s Government who has the power over official appointment. However, unlike the previous system, where the Principal Officials were civil servants hired on permanent and pensionable terms; the Principal Officials under the POAS will be employed on contract, where their contract term will not exceed that of the Chief Executive whom they were nominated

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