W(B)L 51-74 33
NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
Registry HWB
14/34
No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Tep Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
DRAFT letter
To:-
D.T.E. ROBERTS ESQ.,
O.B.E., Q.C.
Type 1 +
From
Attorney-General's Chambers,
Hong Kong.
Telephone No. & Ext.
Department
(28
Lam
ply
to Sir James Me Panie
your letter of 19th
December about the Hong Kong Public Order Ordinance.
We expect to be in a position to convey
the
notification of non-disallowance in the very near
future, but the Governor's comments on the Reform Club's
petition did not reach the Commonwealth Office until
1st January. In addition, the Minister has received
}
from the London Office of Justice a very long and
detailed criticism of various aspects of the Ordinance.
This criticism was prepared by the Hong Kong branch of
Justice and reached the Minister on 28th December.
However, this need not delay the notification of non-
disallowance; indeed, "Justice" are not in fact
seeking-disallowance.
As regards your last paragraph,
Rankin
to the Howa of Comarions laid the Reform Club's petition/on the Table of the
House on 12th December and explained its purpose.
then went to
•
The
petition should now go to the Committee of Public
considered it just before the Christmas Petitions which will classify it and, necessary, have
Recer and did not order it to be printed. (As
it printed.
The reports of the Committee are printed to printing of peritivin and the making of riporti at intervals during the session but it by no means
by the Committee, Sex Erskine Mary, 17th Edition,
follows that every petition so presented even reaches
p.85'5"). The petition now hes in the Journal, tho stuge of being printed Nothing further will be offee, where it may be inspected, but apart done about the petition unless Rankin or some other
from an official notifiarum to this office of Member of Parliament requests that the matter should be
its recompt, nothing further
will be done
debated in the House,
about
it unters
about it.
Mextern
is reflect