Article 21 of the Hong Kong Basic Law stipulates: Chinese citizens who are residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be entitled to participate in the management of state affairs according to law.

In accordance with the assigned number of seats and the selection method specified by the National People's Congress, the Chinese citizens among the residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall locally elect deputies of the Region to the National People's Congress to participate in the work of the highest organ of state power.An electoral college composed of the following: 54 of the 78 candidates were pre-elected on 29 November 2002 and 36 of the 54 candidates were elected on 3 December.

[1] Five pro-democrats who contested in the election, Albert Ho, James To, Sin Chung-kai, Anthony Cheung and Frederick Fung were defeated in the heavily pro-Beijing electoral college.

The Liaison Office was accused of issuing a recommendation list to the electors before the election.

James Tien of the Liberal Party criticised the Liaison Office for circulating the recommendation lists, the Democratic Party's Martin Lee viewed it as a "shadow government" meddling in elections in all levels, including the Chief Executive elections, coordinating with pro-Beijing parties in Legislative Council and District Council elections,.