Teachers' unions in nominations clash
Teachers' unions clashed yesterday over the nomination of candidates to the Selection Committee.
The pro-China Federation of Education Workers accused the pro-democracy Professional Teachers' Union of using its political views to deprive members of the right to participate.
Federation president Yeung Yiu-chung said he had been approached by two members of the rival union, puzzled by the difficulty in getting their own union to verify their status.
Under the Preparatory Committee's rules on the Selection Committee, nominees must be verified by a registered group.
Mr Yeung said: 'To allow democracy, the union should verify members' identity and allow them to contest a Selection Committee seat.' But the union chairman, Democratic Party legislator Cheung Man-kwong, insisted the union was willing to verify members' identity on request.
'We are used to issuing letters to verify members' identity. The verification letter can be used to serve a number of purposes. This is entirely up to the members.
'They can also use it to apply for nomination for the Selection Committee,' Mr Cheung said.
But the union said it would not fill in the space on the Selection Committee application form reserved for the group nominator because of its opposition to the provisional legislature.
Mr Cheung wanted to know why the Preparatory Committee would not accept applicants even though they had a verification letter.
The committee's secretariat deputy director, Fei Fih, said last night it was difficult to accept the nominations because they violated procedure.
The federation has 10,000 members and the union 62,000 members.
Another ambiguity over the nomination procedure was cleared up yesterday.
A spokesman said non-Chinese nationals could meet the residency requirement simply by indicating their willingness to take Hong Kong as their place of permanent residence.
At present, non-Chinese nationals who have been in the territory for more than seven years may not necessarily have permanent identity cards.
But they will be given permanent residency under the Basic Law if they are considered as having resided in the territory continuously for that period.
The spokesman said nominees would need only one group to prove their background. 'If one group does not want to prove their status, they can go to another.' A spokesman for the Law Society said it had received one application for nomination. A full list of names would be released after nominations closed on September 14.
The Immigration Service Officers' Association decided yesterday not to nominate any members for the committee.
