HKU POP SITE releases the latest results of four subjective social indicators and questions on the rule of law in Hong KongBack

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 four subjective social indicators on Hong Kong's degree of "democracy", "freedom", "prosperity", and "stability", as well as findings from a series of questions related to the rule of law in Hong Kong, which are released on-line for the first time. Our 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 our schedule, the date and time of our next release will be July 30, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and Principal Officials under the accountability system will be released.

According to the survey findings released today, of the four subjective social indicators on Hong Kong's degree of "democracy", "freedom", "prosperity" and "stability", in early July (July 2-3), people were much more positive about the degree of freedom than the other three items. The latest score for freedom was 7.1 on a scale from 0-10. Meanwhile, stability and democracy scored 6.2 and 6.1 respectively, and prosperity 5.5. Compared with the results registered in early April, the ratings of all four indicators have dropped. "Prosperity", "freedom" and "democracy" dropped by 0.4, 0.3 and 0.2 marks respectively, whilst "stability" dropped slightly by 0.1 mark, which was statistically insignificant.

As regards the latest results of a series of questions related to the rule of law, the average scores of people's appraisal of the impartiality of the courts, compliance with the rule of law and the fairness of the judicial system were 6.7, 6.6 and 6.4 marks respectively, on a scale from 0-10. Compared with the results of early April, they all decreased by 0.2 mark. On the macro level (please see the charts with per-poll figures), and taking compliance with the rule of law as the core indicator of the three, there is no doubt that people's appraisal of the rule of law was the highest shortly after the handover, with a score of almost 7.2 marks. Thereafter, there were cyclic fluctuations. It first dropped to a record low of 6.1 in July 1999, then went up to 6.6 after more than half a year, then dropped to 6.1 again in October 2000, and then gradually recovered to the current level of 6.6 marks. This shows that the rule of law has not fully recovered after two blows after the handover. People's appraisal of the impartiality of the local courts, however, has not suffered much.

On the other hand, the popularity rating of Chief Justice Andrew Li Kowk-nang registered in mid-July (July 10-15) was 60.6 marks, a slight increase of 0.1 mark from that of mid-June, which was statistically insignificant. On the macro level (please see the charts with per-poll figures), CJ Andrew Li Kowk-nang's ratings have remained fairly stable over the past one and a half years, in the narrow range of 58 to 62 marks. His recognition rate, however, is not quite high, as almost half of the respondents could not give him a rating.

The set of questions related to the rule of law released today is part of our regular "social indicators" survey. POP is now publishing them separately, in conjunction with the rating of CJ Andrew Li Kowk-nang, to form the new "Series on the Rule of Law in Hong Kong". We take that to be a new and important part of the public's monitoring system.

All new surveys reported in the POP Site today are random telephone surveys conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of all surveys is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of the social indicators is less than plus/minus 0.12 mark, while that of the rating of CJ Andrew Li Kowk-nang is plus/minus 1.4 marks. That means 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 comment on the findings at this stage. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when more resources are available. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the work published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.