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OMBUDSMAN REPORT
13
Executive and Legislative Councils) and the Ward System of the Urban Council give the people some place to air their grievances but it is far from satisfactory because the members of all these councils are not engaged in the work full time but only give voluntarily part of their time. The Chairman of the Urban Council has given an explicit statement which was confirmed by the Secretary for Chinese Affairs (now known as Secretary for Home Affairs) that the City District Officers are not in any way Ombudsmen. Their job should be and is to bridge the gap between Government and the people by attending or organising local committee discussions on various subjects, communicating the problems of the people in the districts to Government and vice versa. They have no access to files except perhaps unofficially and their first loyalty must be to the Executive.
In other words the City District Officers are a valuable addition to the ordinary machinery of Government but cannot be regarded as Government's answer to the need for an Ombudsman.
Inadequacy of Present Investigation
At the moment the people of Hong Kong have to rely on the departments concerned or the police to enquire into complaints. There are many departments which do heed genuine criticisms and do make serious efforts to deal with complaints from the public. But at the same time there are departments which are only too anxious to brush aside grievances and to offer a superficial expla- nation without any attempt to correct or to investigate.
The inability on the part of the public to take further steps to redress wrongs or grievances or even sometimes to get a satis- factory reply involving a more painstaking enquiry has caused a sense of frustration among the public of Hongkong.
All members of your Committee have knowledge of instances of such frustration which in some cases has even been underlined by false evidence in court. Sometimes when this false evidence is drawn to the attention of the head of the department concerned he does nothing about it which results in further frustration among the people.