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Regarding the social indicators, results obtained in late February showed that, on a scale of 0-10, Hong Kong's degree of "freedom" scored the highest rating with 7.58 marks. "Civilization", "public order" and "corruption-free practices" followed behind, with respective scores of 7.26, 7.26 and 7.25 marks. "Stability", "prosperity" and "compliance with the rule of law" formed the next tier, scoring 7.19, 7.02 and 7.00 marks respectively. Meanwhile, the ratings of "efficiency", "social welfare sufficiency", "equality" and "democracy" were 6.89, 6.40, 6.32 and 6.08 marks correspondingly. Last of all, "fairness" scored 5.95 marks.
As for the 2 rule of law sub-indicators, the impartiality of the courts scored 7.07 marks, while the rating of the fairness of the judicial system was 6.85 marks. Meanwhile, the latest popularity rating of Chief Justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang, a representative figure of the judicial system, was 60.5 marks, on a scale of 0-100.
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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Our latest finding shows that with the exception of 'democracy', all 12 subjective social indicators have increased over the past 6 months. Among them, 'public order' and 'corruption-free' registered the biggest rise, followed by 'rule of law', 'stability' and 'prosperity'. Other changes are all near or within sampling errors. 'Freedom', 'public order', 'corruption-free', 'stability', 'prosperity' and 'rule of law' are all at record high after 1997, some being all time high since the beginning of this survey series in mid-1997. This shows that Hong Kong people are fairly satisfied with the current social conditions. However, in terms of development trend, the four indicators at the bottom, namely, 'social welfare', 'equality', 'democracy' and 'fairness', have consistently kept a distance from the rest since July 2005. Among them, 'fairness' is always at the bottom. This is something which deserves more attention."
News about POP
POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday afternoon via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next 7 days. According to schedule, our next release of regular survey findings will be March 13, 2007, Tuesday, between 1 pm to 2 pm., when the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang and Principal Officials under the accountability system will be released. Then on March 15, 2007, Thursday, between 1 pm to 2 pm, the latest popularity figures of people's opinions towards Taiwan issues will be released. Because POP has already been conducting the CE Election rolling survey for some time, POP will release the first set of rolling poll wrap-up figures via the POP Site tomorrow, March 9, 2007, Friday, between 1 pm to 2 pm.
Our general practice is to answer all questions on the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site as soon as we receive them, but we will not further comment on the findings. We welcome questions for follow-up purpose, please email them to us at . 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 POP, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.
For the whole of last year, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of sharing our research experience with the readers and the general public, and the subject of our education section today is "About HKUPOP". In the near future, we will keep on stepping up our effort in promoting general civic education to enhance our POP Site accordingly.
About HKUPOP
Subjective social and rule of law indicators
Social indicator survey is a common way to monitor and measure a society's development. HKUPOP first conducted such surveys around the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, in order to monitor the new development of Hong Kong society. We explained the development of such surveys in our press release dated on September 5, 2006. Today, we release again, so that readers can have a more comprehensive picture of such development. In our research domain, "social indicators" comprises 12 main indicators, namely, "democracy", "freedom, "prosperity", "stability", "fairness", "civilization", "corruption-free", "equality", "efficiency", "social welfare", "public order" and "rule of law", and 2 sets of "freedom sub-indicators" and "rule of law sub-indicators". The first set comprises "freedom of speech", "freedom of press", "freedom of publication", "freedom of procession and demonstration", "freedom of association", "freedom to strike", "freedom to enter or leave Hong Kong", "freedom to engage in academic research", "freedom to engage in artistic and literary creation" and "freedom of religious belief", while the latter set comprises "fairness of the judicial system" and "impartiality of the courts". Herewith the details of our "social indicators" and "rule of law sub-indicators" surveys:
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Between June and November 1997, our surveys of social and rule of law indicators were conducted once every month. It was then changed to once every two months, until it was changed again to once every three months beginning from July 2000. Starting from October 2005, its frequency was gradually changed to once every six months, in order to match society's development.
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For the "social indicators" and "rule of law sub-indicators" surveys, the wordings used in the questionnaire are "If you were to use 0-10 to evaluate whether Hong Kong is a such and such society, with 10 indicating absolutely such and such, 0 indicating absolutely not such and such, 5 indicating half-half, how would you rate Hong Kong?" During our "rule of law sub-indicators" surveys, we also include one additional question on the rating of the Chief Justice, wordings being "Please use a scale of 0-100 to rate your extent of support to the Chief Justice Andrew Li Kwok-nang, with 0 indicating absolutely not supportive, 100 indicating absolutely supportive and 50 indicating half-half. How would you rate the Chief Justice Andrew Li
Kwok-nang?"
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Regarding sample size, between July 1997 and March 2000, the sample size of all surveys was set at slightly over 500. From May 2000 onwards, it was increased to at least 1,000.
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The findings of our early social and rule of law indicators conducted between June 1997 and June 1998 were published in our newsletter POP Express. After our HKU POP Site was established in June 2000, such findings were released on-line starting from January and July 2002 respectively, while all previous findings published in our POP Express were also uploaded on-line in various formats.
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