Imagine New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing that he has political powers beyond the state legislature and judiciary, and answers only to the president of the United States. In another global financial hub halfway around the world, something akin to the fictive scenario has actually happened.
On Sept. 16, Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying told reporters at a press conference that the office of chief executive held a “special legal position that transcends” the executive, legislative, and judicial arms of the city’s government.
“Therefore, it is true that the chief executive has superior power,” said Leung, whose remarks were carried by public broadcaster Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK).
Leung was defending a speech made four days earlier by Zhang Xiaoming, the top Chinese official at the Hong Kong Liaison Office—the Chinese Communist Party’s official presence in the region—during a seminar on the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of Hong Kong’s governing document, the Basic Law.
Zhang had said that the chief executive has a “special legal position, which overrides administrative, legislative and judicial organs,” and that it was “not accurate to describe Hong Kong’s political system as separation of powers.”
