HKU POP SITE releases the latest results of the four subjective social indicators, and a series of questions related to the rule of law Back

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest results of the 4 subjective social indicators on Hong Kong's degree of "democracy", "freedom", "prosperity" and "stability", and the latest findings from a series of questions related to the rule of law. POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly. According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be May 13, 2003, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and the Principal Officials under the accountability system will be released.

Between April 16 and 23, 2003, POP conducted a random telephone survey which successfully interviewed 1,021 Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above, to gauge people's ratings of the 4 subjective social indicators on Hong Kong's degree of "democracy", "freedom", "prosperity" and "stability". Results showed that, on a scale of 0-10, the latest score for freedom was 7.24 marks, which remained to be significantly higher than those of the other 3 social indicators. Meanwhile, democracy and stability scored 6.09 and 5.92 marks respectively, while the latest score for prosperity has hit its record low with 5.33 marks. When compared to the corresponding figures registered in late January, respective drops of 0.48 and 0.39 marks were recorded for the ratings of stability and prosperity, which were both statistically significant.

Regarding the rule of law in Hong Kong, also on a scale of 0-10, the latest ratings of people's appraisal of Hong Kong's compliance with the rule of law and the impartiality of the courts scored 6.51 and 6.78 marks respectively. When compared to the results of late January, the former has significantly dropped by 0.15 mark, whereas an increase of 0.12 mark was observed for the latter. Meanwhile, people's appraisal of the fairness of the judicial system was 6.40 marks. Result also showed that the latest popularity rating of Chief Justice Andrew Li Kowk-nang was 58.8 marks, indicating a significant decrease of 2.5 marks from that of late January.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, made the following analysis: "Since the method and date of survey for the 7 indicators are the same, all of them could be compared on equal footing. Moreover, among the 3 indicators relating to the rule of law, "compliance with the rule of law" is the most representative one. Results show that over the past 3 months, "stability" and "prosperity" have dropped significantly, while "freedom" and "democracy" have remained stable, and the "rule of law" has dropped somewhat. The relative ranking of the 5 major indicators is now "freedom", "rule of law", "democracy", "stability" and "prosperity". "Prosperity" used to be on the top of the list before November 1997, but it dropped to the bottom in April 2001 and has remained there since then. The outbreak of SARS has, no doubt, further compressed people's appraisal of Hong Kong's "prosperity" and "stability"."

The new poll released in the POP Site today is a random telephone survey conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the survey is 1,021 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of all indicators reported is plus/minus 0.12 mark, while that of the rating of CJ Andrew Li Kowk-nang is plus/minus 1.2 marks. The meaning of "95% confidence level" is that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified. Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not further comment on the findings. Shall any person or journalist have any other questions, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. The Director of Public Opinion Programme would answer them as soon as possible. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.