[1][2] The ordinance was seen as another round of the Beijing authorities to bar the opposition from standing in elections or holding public offices and also raised concerns on the bill's vague parameters of the oath with such over-reaching scope would undermine Hong Kong's judicial independence.

11) originally stated that five categories of public officers, Chief Executive, principal officials, members of the Executive Council and of the Legislative Council, judges of the courts at all levels and other members of the judiciary must "swear to uphold the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China and swear allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China" when assuming office.

In the 2016 New Territories East by-election for the Legislative Council, pro-independence activist Edward Leung ran for the office and fared a better-than-expected result by obtaining more than 15 per cent of the popular vote.

[4] The decision was challenged by the leading lawyers in Hong Kong, who questioned whether returning officers had the power to investigate the "genuineness" of candidates' declarations and accordingly disqualify their candidacies.

Two localist legislators-elect, Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching of Youngspiration used the largely ritual oath-taking ceremony on the inaugural meeting of the Legislative Council on 12 October 2016 to protest, asserting "as a member of the Legislative Council, I shall pay earnest efforts in keeping guard over the interests of the Hong Kong nation," displayed a "Hong Kong is not China" banner, and mispronounced "People's Republic of China" as "people's re-fucking of Chee-na".

[9][11] In early July 2021, the government reportedly considered banning 230 councillors to take oath of office and would ask them return their accrued salaries which worth around a million dollars.

[16] In the 21 October statement, an EU spokesperson said that the expulsions and resignations negate the results of the 2019 District Council election and had weakened Hong Kong's "democratic governance structure".

"The EU calls on China to act in accordance with its international commitments and its legal obligations and to respect Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and rights and freedoms.