On Monday, the government said it would bypass legislative procedure to expedite the passage of amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance.
Opponents had disrupted a succession of legislative sessions meant to scrutinise the Bill, with brawls breaking out in the legislative council.“Valuable time for deliberation has been lost,” Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam told reporters. “The most serious issue is that we couldn’t see a way forward, how to break this deadlock other than to force me to scrap this Bill, but this is unrealistic,” she told reporters.
She said the Bill would now be sent directly to the full legislature on June 12 for a second reading, to try to pass it before the legislature’s summer recess. If the Bill is passed, Hong Kong would allow, for the first time, ad hoc extradition requests to countries with no existing extradition treaties, including places like Taiwan, and crucially, mainland China. — Reuters