Maria Tam Wai-chu GBM GBS CBE JP (Chinese: 譚惠珠; born 2 November 1945) is a senior Hong Kong politician and lawyer.

In December 1984 when she met with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, she raised the question of the proposed Sino-British Joint Declaration and the "possible incompatibility between the Chinese constitution and the basic law", especially the protection of human rights.

[6] As the colonial government intended to introduce greater representative democracy in the transition period, Tam also founded the Progressive Hong Kong Society (PHKS) in 1985 to participate in the elections.

[7] However, Tam's political career seemed to come to an end when she was found to be in a potential conflict of interest as she was involved in her family's taxi company while also being a member and former chairman of the Transport Advisory Committee.

In that capacity, Tam became one of the most loyal mouthpieces of the Beijing authorities on legal matters, especially in defence of controversial interpretations of the Basic Law and in the constitutional reform debate after 1997.

[10] In 1997, she led the Liberal Democratic Federation to merge with the Hong Kong Progressive Alliance (HKPA), another pro-business pro-Beijing party.

[4] During the highly controversial national security legislation of the Basic Law Article 23 which later caused a record number of more than 500,000 people demonstration on 1 July 2003, Tam supported the government's decision to pass the bill.

[11] In the constitutional reform debates in 2005 and 2010, Tam led the opposition against the pro-democrats' demand for the universal suffrage of Chief Executive and Legislative Council and defended the government's proposals.

In February 2006, Tam joined the board of subsequently Hong Kong-listed mainland Nine Dragons Paper Holdings Limited, one of the world's largest paperboard manufacturers, whose conditions for workers at its plants were sharply criticised in the 2008 human rights report by the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China and by Hong Kong's Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM).

[15] In 2015, Tam was appointed chairman of the Operations Review Committee of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying.

[23] In December 2022, after the NPCSC ruled that the Chief Executive could ban foreign lawyers from defending national security cases, in response to Jimmy Lai attempting to hire Tim Owen, Tam supported the NPCSC's decision and said Hong Kong courts were still independent and "no criticism were made against Hong Kong courts at all.