17 FOR MINISTER OF STATE FOR MEGT ING
YITH MA GHALD de BASTO
Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association
Friday 9 August. 1963
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Mr. de Basto, Chairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association, is at present in London and has sought interviews, both with the Commonwealth
Secretary and with the Minister of State. He has been informed that
the Commonwealth Secretary is unable to see him but that Lord Shepherd
will be glad to do so. Kr. de Basto has specified certain matters
that he wishes to raise with the Minister on behalf of his Association.
These matters are dealt with in the following paragraphs. 2. (1) The appointment of practising barristers from the Hong Kong
Bar to the Bench of the Superior Court of Hong Kong (where no suitable candidates are available for, or willin; to accept such appointments in Hong Kong, then appointments to the Bench should be made from practising members of the English Bar). This matter was amongst others raised by the Association in 1963
and was discussed with them in Hong Kong by the present Legal Adviser to the Commonwealth Secretary. At that time, the Association were concerned to see that it was accepted in principle that members of the practising Bar in Hong Kong would be eligible for consideration for appointment to the Supreme Court Bench. Now, however, they are apparently advancing their demands since they appear to be contending that all appointments to the Supreme Court Bench in Hong Kong should be made from the local Bar or from practising members of the English Bar. There is no objection in principle to appointing a practising member of the local Bar to be a judge of the Supreme Court and this has on
occasion been done in other colonial territories. The justification advanced in Mr. de Basto's letter for the proposal that appointments to the Supreme Court Bench should be made exclusively from the practising members of the profession is that this would be in accordanco with English practice. It must be remembered however that in England the lower judicial appointments (County Court Judge, Chairman of quarter Sessions and Stipendiary Magistrate) are also filled from the practising profession. In Hong Kong this is not so and could hardly be so since the practising members of the Bar number only about 40. What the Bar Association are in effect asking for seems to be that the senior Judicial appointments (1.e. the Supreme Court Bench) should be reserved for members of the Bar while the junior appointments would presumably be filled by members of the Overseas Judicial Service. On that basis it would be impossible to maintain a service of expatriates to man the
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