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The Hong Kong Palace Museum is a planned museum exhibiting artifacts of Beijing's Palace Museum in Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD). Construction is planned to begin in 2017, with the museum scheduled for completion by 2022.

The decision to construct the Museum, however, has generated much controversy and criticism from the civil society, largely due to the Hong Kong government's failure to conduct public consultation exercise beforehand. The government subsequently launched a six-week consultation process where, instead of collecting views on whether the museum should be constructed, the public was merely invited to provide views on the Museum's design and operation with a short questionnaire.

Description
The 328000 sqft building will be designed by Hong Kong architecture firm Rocco Design Architects, who was directly appointed. It will comprise two exhibition halls, activity rooms, a 400-seat theatre, a gift shop and a restaurant. It will be built on the site of the West Kowloon Nursery Park.

The Museum will display artifacts borrowed from the Palace Museum in Beijing, some of which have never been displayed previously.

Conception
Then Chief Secretary Carrie Lam stated that the idea of the museum was conceived during an event in Beijing in September 2015. She said that she asked the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust about funding the $3.5 billion project in December 2015, and that the request was approved by their board of directors in October 2016.

Announcement
News of the museum was made public in a surprise announcement on 23 December 2016. On that day Chief Secretary Carrie Lam signed a cooperation agreement with the Palace Museum in Beijing. The signing was witnessed by then Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and Chinese culture minister Luo Shugang. Leung commented, "This is the best and greatest gift to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to the motherland", referring to the 2017 commemoration of the Handover.

The new museum will display relics lent from the Forbidden City on a long-term basis. It will be managed by a subsidiary of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA). The cost of construction is planned to be covered by a $3.5 billion donation from the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The funding arrangement circumvents the need for the government to seek funding from the Legislative Council.

Reaction and responses from different stakeholders
The announcement was controversial. Critics complained of the lack of public consultation. Others view the museum as an effort to increase Beijing's influence in Hong Kong and as a "political scheme" to foment patriotism. This follows a year of political turmoil in Hong Kong surrounding Beijing's encroachment on the territory's rights and freedoms, including civil unrest in Mong Kok, government disqualification of certain candidates prior to the Legislative Council election, demonstrations in front of the Liaison Office in Sai Wan, and the ousting of democratically elected pro-independence legislators.

Panel Members
Ada Wong, who sits on the consultation panel of the WKCDA, said that the panel received no notification prior to the announcement of the new museum. She questioned the secrecy surrounding the project, asking: "If it is a good proposal, why didn’t they communicate with us sooner? [...] The government should tell us why it chose to inform Hong Kong people in this manner. It should explain why it didn’t begin the consultation process sooner, whether West Kowloon is the best site, and who will lead the project." She said she would not oppose the museum, but suggested that its content should be presented from a Hong Kong perspective. Legislator James To said that the opacity of the project planning was "absolutely inappropriate" and undermined Hong Kong's autonomy.

Scholars
Town planner Camille Lam criticised the direct appointment of Rocco Yim as architect without any design competition, as had been done with the M+ Museum, or open tender, as is common practice for other public buildings. She said that the public should be consulted as the government was changing the established plan for the WKCD, which was drawn up with extensive public consultation.

Although exhibition was held at City Gallery to inform the public about the details of the project, it only consists of six double-sided display boards with a brief overview. It subsequently drew criticisms for not being informative enough. Civic Party lawmaker Tanya Chan said that the display boards told nothing about the size and proportion breakdown of the facilities. No helper was stationed to walk the visitors through the exhibit in person. She described the consultation process as ‘hastily thrown together’. Retired High Court judge William Waung, a Maritime Museum board member, commented that the display was “very bad” and there was no consultation practice at all. He said “This is not really a public consultation because a public consultation is [an exercise in which officials say] ‘if residents oppose it, we won’t do it’. But is there such a choice here?”

Legal expert Johannes Chan point out that a legal grey area existed under the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Ordinance. It stated that the public should be consulted on matters of the facilities, including the operation and development. He said it was questionable whether every project requires pubic consultation.

Civil Society Groups
The group Articipants, which includes professionals from the drama, music and film industries, handed in more than 600 signatures to the consultation panel through an online petition in less than five days.

On the other hand, a group called the Alliance in Support of Hong Kong Palace Museum was formed to support the idea. The convenor, Fok kin-man, stated that the lack of consultation was so that the government could give the Hong Kong people a pleasant surprise.

Responses from Carrie Lam
Regarding the direct appointment of Rocco Yim, Lam admitted that it was her “judgment and decision” to engage Yim to design the museum. But she denied having committed procedural impropriety. She claimed that “procurement policies of many governmental departments and organizations” give flexibility for direct appointment under special circumstances. The appointment of Yim as lead consultant was approved at a special board meeting and formally made by the authority’s CEO Duncan Pescod. She believed Yim is knowledgeable about the West Kowloon Cultural District and has experience in building large museums. She said “We conceive policy initiatives from time to time… and most of these exercises are done in a confidential manner until we are ready to disclose and announce, and then we listen to public opinion. That is the very usual way of doing government work.’ Carrie Lam gave three reasons to respond to the criticisms regarding the lack of consultation. First, she said that the museum is located at West Kowloon Cultural District, which is already planned as cultural-use land. Therefore, there is no need for public consultation for the use of land. Second, West Kowloon Cultural District is managed by the statutory organization – West Kowloon Cultural District Board, but not the government. She admitted that her identity of Chief Secretary and the chief of the board would be confusing. However, she stressed that this project had gained the approval from the board according to the procedures. Third, she explained that there were many parties and stakeholders involved in the preparation process, including those form the central government, so it is hard to conduct public consultation. She said that if public consultation was started in earlier stage and one of the steps cannot gain public agreement, it will lead to an embarrassing situation She took the example of 2007 where the China government gave two pandas to Hong Kong to illustrate that the government at that time didn't consult the public either. She believed the present case is the same situation.

West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and its consultation panel
The West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCDA) is a statutory body established by the Hong Kong Government under the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Ordinance (Cap. 601). A partially commercial statutory body underwritten by government, the Authority manages its finances independently, and is dependent on government backing for capital expenditure. It is governed by the 24-member Board of the authority, and is responsible for the planning, operation, development and maintenance of the facilities in the WKCD.

Per Section 20(1) of the WKCDA Ordinance, a 16-member consultation panel was established and tasked to gather public views on the functions and performance of the Authority, and to perform public consultation exercises “at such time and in such manner as it considers appropriate”. Section 20(3) of the Ordinance also provides the members of the Panel, including its chairman, are to be appointed directly by the Authority.

The Authority’s and its Panel’s reaction and response
None of the members sitting in the Consultation Panel received prior notification of the government’s decision to construct the Palace Museum. Furthermore, no public consultation exercises were conducted by the government or the panel prior to the surprise announcement.

In response to the apparent lack of consultation, Chairman of the Consultation panel Leong Chi-yan argued it would be “polarizing” to ask the public whether they favoured the construction of the museum, and David Pescod, CEO of the WKCDA, warned that Hong Kong might “lose a fantastic opportunity” if it decided against the museum’s construction.

This is not the first time the government failed to conduct public consultation in relation to the WKCD project. In September 2003, the government attempted to award he project to a single consortium unilaterally. This prompted strong opposition from the civil society, and eventually resulted in the government scrapping its original plan, and restart the design in February 2006.

Controversies: Limitations of the Authority and its Panel
The inability of the authority and its panel in discharging their consultative functions in relation to the Palace Museum’s construction can be explained by problems with their composition, statutory powers, and structure.

Biased Composition
According to the official webpage of the WKCDA, the authority and its panel comprises members representing the interests of different sectors of the community. However, in practice, like many other advisory and statutory bodies, the membership of the WKCDA and its consultation panel is arguably dominated by the business and professional sectors. For instance, the Chairman of the Authority, Henry Tang Ying-yen, was questioned for his suitability for the role, due to his close ties with the business sector. Given his business background, critics worry Tang would commercialize the WKCD project, and that he might be unable to comprehend the interests and concerns of the cultural sector. Also, concerns were raised as to whether the Chairman of the Consultation Panel Leong Chi-yan, who simultaneously served as the Chairman of the Hopsital Authority, had sufficient time and expertise to steer the work of the Panel.

Furthermore, only 2 members of the Board: Yip Wing-sie and Danny Yung, are considered “pioneers” of the cultural sector, whilst other members mainly represent the business sector, or professional sectors like legal and higher education etc. Legislator Cyd Ho argued this means the Panel lacked members with expertise in arts and cultural policies, and management of arts and cultural resources. This also ran counter to the government’s promise that it would co-opt “anyone with ability and the commitment to serve the community” into its statutory and advisory bodies, and that these bodies would foster public participation in public policy formulation.

The biased composition of the WKCDA authority and panel had implications on the lack of consultation in the museum project. In the first meeting of the Consultation Panel following the government’s surprise announcement, only one member in attendance, Ching Cheung-ying of the education sector, explicitly and directly expressed concerns over the manner from which the proposal of developing the Palace Museum was conceived, and called for more transparency in the construction of the project. Instead of raising concerns over consultation, other members mostly queried the details of the project itself, such as issues on the size of the venue, the transport of artifacts and security etc. Also, they supported the construction of the Palace Museum, and largely downplayed the lack of public consultation prior to the government’s decision. Therefore, steps should be taken to ensure the membership of the Authority and its Panel is balanced and representative of different sectors, so that the Panel would be more committed to civic engagement.

Limitations of the Panel’s role and functions
While the Consultation panel offer advises to the Authority as to its role and functions, the influence of the Panel in the policy process, just like many other statutory and advisory bodies, is not particularly significant. This is because the Panel mainly assumes an advisory rather than an executive role, and the government is not obliged to respond to Panel members’ suggestions. Furthermore, the Consultation Panel only hold meetings once or twice a year, further limiting the opportunities for the Panel to discharge its intended functions.

The limitation of the Panel’s role and functions accounted for its failure to conduct consultation exercises prior to the government’s decision to construct the Palace Museum. During meetings of the Consultation Panel, the WKCDA Board repeatedly assured it would keep the public and the Panel informed of the implementation of the WKCD project. However, the Panel has no authority to hold the Board accountable to its promises. Hence, the Board is free to renege on its assurance, and announce the Palace Museum project without notifying the Panel beforehand.

Statutory restrictions of the Panel
Furthermore, statutory provisions of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Ordinance (Cap. 601) further limited the Panel’s ability to discharge its consultative functions. Section 19 of the Ordinance provides the Panel should perform public consultation “at such time and in such manner as it considers appropriate”. When lawmaker Helena Wong demanded an explanation for the Panel’s failure to consult the public on the construction of the Palace Museum per Section 19 of the Ordinance, Secretary for Home Affairs Lau Kong-wah pointed out that Section 19 conferred the Panel flexibility in deciding whether a public consultation exercise is appropriate or not in the nature and circumstances of a given proposal. If the panel is required to consult the public on every single matter rigidly at a specific time and in a specific manner, the spirit of the ordinance would be undermined, and the Panel would fail to address the needs of different stakeholders. As can be seen, statutory restraints produced inconsistencies in the Panel’s consultative practices, and provided the Panel with an excuse not to consult the public even when decisions are likely contentious and debatable.

Lack of credibility in the appointment mechanism
According to Section 20 of the WKCDA Ordinance, members of the consultation Panel, including its chairman, are to be appointed by the Authority, whose membership is in turn appointed by the Chief Executive per Section 6(5) of the same Ordinance. Also, like other statutory authorities, appointed members of the Authority and the Panel participate as individuals, and are not required to consult others in their respective sectors. Taken altogether, this appointment mechanism created a possible conflict of interest, whereby the Chief Executive would be inclined to appoint members who share the government’s vision on the WKCD project into the authority and the Panel. Members, on the other hand, are incentivized to show their loyalty to the government to secure an appointment. This cast doubt as to the ability of the Panel to “work independently from WKCDA, and have a free hand in steering the direction of its work”, thus weakening the legitimacy and credibility of the appointment mechanism.

The lack of credibility in the Panel’s and Authority’s appointment system had an impact on the Panel’s failure to conduct public consultation. The government has long treated the WKCD as an infrastructural project, and has denied the development of cultural facilities required the prior stipulation of an arts and culture policy. Hence, many of the government appointed Panel members likely shared similar views, and downplayed the significance of cultural facilities like the planned mega performance venue and exhibition centre which is to be replaced by the Museum.

The Spectrum of Public Participation
This spectrum is developed by the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2). It suggests five levels of public participation (or community engagement), namely “Inform”, “Consult”, “Involve”, “Collaborative”, and “Empower”.

With reference to the Spectrum of Public Participation, the civic engagement of the Hong Kong Palace Museum has reached the levels "Inform", "Consult" and "Involve". In terms of the "Inform" level, exhibitions were displayed for the public, but the information was not sufficient enough for the public to understand. In terms of the "Consult" level, surveys or written submission were collected. Consultation meetings were also held, but mostly were closed-door instead of open consultation meetings inviting the general public. In terms of the "Involve" level, the public were invited to express their opinions through filling in surveys and submitting letters, but the decisions were still generally decided by the WKCDA instead of collaborating with or fully empowering the preferences or concerns from the public.

Comments on the civic engagement process of Hong Kong Palace Museum
There were 22,224 visits to the consultation exhibition; 22,640 online visits of the project; 623 surveys received and 905 online responses received. 58 written submission covering opinions from 123 individuals, associations or groups were received. 1,805 face-to-face interviews were conducted in 18 districts.

The participation rate is not satisfactory as Ada Wong Ying-kay, a member of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Consultation Panel, said that she hoped the consultation will be serious and urged the public to take part rather than to severely criticize the project.

However, regarding the announcement of the Hong Kong Palace Museum, Civic Party lawmaker Tanya Chan commented on the lack of prior notice and consultation, “It’s hard to believe what Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said about having planned for a public consultation months in advance,” she said, describing it as “hastily thrown together”.

She also commented on the insufficient information on the display and the low participation of the consultation exhibition that “There’s no information whatsoever on the size and proportion breakdown of the facilities. There’s not even anyone to walk me through the exhibit in person.”

The retired High Court judge William Waung Sik-ying, a Maritime Museum board member and the first visitor of the exhibition, said the display was “very bad” as it offered little information and choice. This shows that the exhibition is unable to provide the public with comprehensive information.

Regarding the surveys and online surveys conducted, seven questions about the facilities and types of exhibitions and programmes people would like to see were asked, but it does not touch on whether the museum should be built at all, or if it should be located in the West Kowloon Cultural District.

An HKU law student, the founder of “Judicial Review Group” requested a judicial review on the construction of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. He deemed that the lack of consultation and discussion before the decision had violated the West Kowloon Cultural District Ordinance Section 61 Article 19. He submitted 3,560 and 14 petitions from individuals and social organizations to then Chief Secretary Carrie Lam and received no reply prior to the request of judicial review. He also deemed that conducting consultation after the decision was hasty and had violated procedural justice.

Suggestions on Public Engagement
Hong Kong Vision published some suggestions on improving Hong Kong's public engagement process, the recommendations are as follows: With reference to the above guidelines from the European Union, the public engagement of the Hong Kong Palace Museum could have been greatly improved in the following ways:
 * 1) Guidelines of public engagement should be made public every five to ten years to inform the public of the latest channels of consultation
 * 2) Guidelines from the European Union are suggested to improve public engagement as follows:
 * 3) Participants: Public engagement activities should include all stakeholders if possible.
 * 4) Openness and accountability: Consultation result, their corresponding impacts on policy-making, together with the procedures of public engagement should be made known to the participants and the general public
 * 5) Influence: The government should conduct consultations at an early stage
 * 6) Consistency: The government should ensure every public engagement activity has the same and consistent consultation procedures
 * 7) Establishing a set of standard procedures regarding public engagement
 * 8) Making good use of the Internet to strengthen citizen’s participation

As the Hong Kong Palace Museum is a public facility, the general public should be the major stakeholder of this project. The WKCDA could conduct more public consultation sessions to include all stakeholders instead of closed-door meetings that only invited professionals to attend. The result or progress of the consultation meetings should also be reported and be open to the public. Although the consultation meeting minutes can be found on the internet, it is not a reader-friendly version. Most importantly, the consultations could have been conducted at an earlier stage where the public and professionals' opinions could be considered before the decision of constructing the Hong Kong Palace Museum. Lastly, the government could establish a clear guidelines for consultations on different kinds of decision generally together with the public and professionals, so as to avoid controversy on consultations.