Macau's highest court today ruled against the appeals lodged by the trustees of three so-called "pro-democracy" candidacy lists for the upcoming Legislative Assembly (AL) elections.
The trustees had filed their separate appeals after Macau's Legislative Assembly Electoral Affairs Commission disqualified a number of candidates for failing to uphold the Basic Law of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) and/or for being disloyal to the MSAR. The trio appealed after the commission on July 20 had rejected their formal objections to the disqualifications on July 20.
The court said it found the first two candidates of each of the candidacy lists had attended activities that, according to the election law of the Legislative Assembly, disqualify them from running in the September 12 direct election. That left each of the candidacy lists with fewer than the minimum four qualified candidates required by the law to be able to run in the upcoming election, the Court of Final Appeal (TUI) said in its ruling.
According to the Election Law of the Legislative Assembly, candidates who are found to have carried out acts that do not uphold the Basic Law of the MSAR or prove to be disloyal to the MSAR are to be disqualified from participating in the election process.
The disqualified candidates are incumbent lawmaker Sulu Sou Ka Hou and activist Chan Lok Kei of the New Macau Progressives, former lawmaker Paul Chan Wai Chi and activist Lei Kuok Keong of the New Macau Progressive Association, and incumbent legislator Ng Kuok Cheong and activist Scott Chiang Meng Hin of the Democratic Prosperous Macau Association.
The top court stated in its ruling it had no doubts that the the disqualified candidates participated in activities in support of the June 4 incident and/or the so-called Charter 08 as well as the so-called Jasmine Revolution.
The Charter 08 document of 2008 called for the overthrow of the nation's political system, namely the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The so-called Jasmine Revolution of 2011 also called for the toppling of the nation's political system. "June 4" refers to the incident in Beijing in 1989 when the authorities put an end to anti-government protests on and around Tiananmen Square.
Some of the disqualified candidates organised June 4 vigils annually in Macau.
On September 12, 14 of Macau's 33 lawmakers will be directly elected by universal suffrage and 12 will be indirectly elected by association representatives. After the direct and indirect elections, the remaining seven legislators will be appointed by the chief executive.
Meanwhile, the Macau government issued a statement today to express its backing of the court's decision to reject the three lists' separate appeals against their candidates' disqualifications from the upcoming direct election.
The government said it "respects and supports" the final decision on the matter. It also said that it fully supported the Legislative Assembly Electoral Affairs Commission's preparations for the September 12 elections.
