HK chief executive submits report to China's top legislature

Hong Kong Chief Executive C Y Leung submitted Tuesday a report to China's top legislature, initiating the five-step process of Hong Kong's constitutional development.

The report focuses on whether there is a need to amend the methods for selecting Hong Kong's chief executive in 2017 and for forming the Legislative Council in 2016.

According to the report, the mainstream opinion is that Article 45 of the Basic Law has already made clear that the power to nominate chief executive candidates is vested in the nomination committee only, and that the nomination committee has a substantive power to nominate.

Such power of nomination must not be undermined or bypassed directly or indirectly, said the report.