High Court dismisses challenge of DC nomination system
The High Court on Friday dismissed a legal challenge that asked it to declare the District Council nomination mechanism unconstitutional.  Following an electoral reform, hopefuls must collect nominations from three district level committees to stand in the polls.  Lawyers for the applicant, Kwok Cheuk-kin, argued that the new requirement means the constitutional rights to vote and stand in elections are infringed.  They argued that the committee members have greater power to nominate than the general electorate, adding that three quarters of the candidates running in the upcoming polls are committee members themselves. However, judge Russell Coleman dismissed the judicial review, saying that all in all, the new mechanism meets a legal test of it achieving legitimate aim. He said in the judgement that the requirement to obtain committee members' nominations "is allied" to the need to get nominations from 50 residents of a particular directly-elected constituency. "What is shown is that members tend to favour themselves or their peers. But that is not necessarily inappropriate when the individual characteristic of members (part of the reason they were appointed in the first place) is taken into account," Coleman added.