7th Legislative Council of Hong Kong
| 7th Legislative Council of Hong Kong | |||||||||
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| Overview | |||||||||
| Legislative body | Legislative Council | ||||||||
| Jurisdiction | Hong Kong | ||||||||
| Meeting place | Legislative Council Complex | ||||||||
| Term | 1 January 2022 – 31 December 2025 | ||||||||
| Election | 2021 election | ||||||||
| Government | Lam Administration (until 30 June 2022) Lee Administration (Since 1 July 2022) | ||||||||
| Members | 90 members | ||||||||
| President | Andrew Leung (BPA) | ||||||||
| Party control | Pro-Beijing camp | ||||||||
| Sessions | |||||||||
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The Seventh Legislative Council of Hong Kong is the seventh meeting of the legislative branch of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government. Its term of office began on 1 January 2022 and convened on 12 January 2022, in the last six months of Carrie Lam's tenure as Chief Executive and the first three-and-a-half years of John Lee's term of office. The legislature's term of office ended on 31 December 2025.
The December 2021 election decided control of the legislature. Originally scheduled for 6 September 2020, Chief Executive Carrie Lam postponed the election for a whole year on 31 July 2020 because of COVID-19 pandemic. On 11 March 2021, the National People's Congress (NPC) passed a decision to drastically overhaul the Hong Kong electoral system, which was followed by the Carrie Lam administration promulgated the Improving Electoral System (Consolidated Amendments) Ordinance 2021, which changed the general election of the seventh term of the Legislative Council from 5 September to 19 December 2021. Under the Ordinance, the membership of the Legislative Council increased from 70 to 90, and the members were elected by the Election Committee with 40 seats, functional constituencies with 30 seats, and geographical constituencies with 20 seats respectively.
Under the new "patriots only" election rules, the pro-Beijing camp won its largest majority ever, taking 89 out of the 90 seats in the chamber. The pan-democratic and localist camps were left with no representation in the legislature for the first time since the Handover, with political parties disbanded, candidates disqualified from running, and most of their supporters boycotting the election. The 2021 election registered the lowest turnout ever since the introduction of elections to the Legislative Council in 1985, with only 32.22% of registered voters turning out to vote in the functional and geographical constituencies.
The legislators elected in 2021 have been criticised for not showing up to meetings and votes and for failing to submit work reports; in the 2024 legislative year, two-thirds of the 24 bills adopted were passed with under half of all councillors present, falling short of the 45-member quorum requirement. Despite an increase in the size of the council, the number of questions asked by lawmakers has plunged, almost halving from 6,722 in 2020 to 3519 in 2023, with the quality of questions reported as having "plummeted".