HKK 1/8
CONFIDENTIAL
Hong Kong Department 20
27 March, 1969
16
Thank you for your letter CR 17/3231/67 of the 6th March, with its enclosures, on the subject of the Commissioner for Administration Bill.
We forwarded a copy of the draft Bill, with its explanatory memorandum, to the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner, emphasising the point made in the fourth paragraph of your letter and we have now received a reply from Mr. E. L. Sykes, Secretary to the Parliamentary Commissioner. The only point of detail on which Mr. Sykes has commented relates to the time-bar provision contained in Clauses 13(a) and 1(2). He makes the point that this provision seems to be absolute and to permit the Commissioner no discretion to waive it. The British Act allows the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration discretion to waive the time-bar and this discretion has found to be most useful.
As regards the last paragraph of your letter, Mr. Sykes has commented as follows:
"Denys Roberts called on me last year, and I shall be very glad to see him again when he is next in England. The question of a call on the PCA should, I suggest, be settled nearer to the time when we know about leave arrangements, etc. I should be very glad also to see Primrose and to discuss the work of this Office with him as fully as he wishes. But I am afraid the PCA has had to make it a rule that he cannot have anyone "attached" to the Office, if by attachment you mean that he should see actual cases and files. The reason for this is that the Parliamentary Commissioner is bound by Section 11(2) of our Act not to disclose information in the same way as is proposed by Section 20(2) of the Hong Kong draft."
I attach a copy of the Annual Report for 1968 of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration in this country, which you may find of some use.
M. D. A. Clinton, Esq., G.M.,
Deputy Colonial Secretary,
HONG KONG.
(A. W. Gaminara)
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CONFIDENTIAL