Our Ref: 42/2203D.
Dear Mr. Royle,
3rd December, 1968.
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It is not proposed to send an official reply to the Secretary of the Hong Kong Bar Association's letter which appeared in yesterday's "Tines". I am most grateful for your offer to give what help you can. The following points may be of some use to you.
In my letter of 14th November, I stated that there were thirty or so persons still in detention in Hong Kong under Emergency Regulation 31. The reference to 40 or 50 detainees in Mr. Litton's letter might lead people to suppose that a number of additional detention orders had been issued since I wrote. This is far from being the case. The number of detainees has been reduced to 29. As you will have heard by the time you receive this letter, a further six were released today reducing the number to 23.
No new detention orders have in fact been issued by the Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong since mid- April.
Mr. Litton implies in his letter that the retention of emergency powers is no longer necessary. As you know, violence has indeed ceased in Hong Kong but there is no reason to suppose that the Communists have dropped their "struggle". After all the Cultural Revolution in China, which gave rise to the events of last year in Hong Kong, is still running its course.
Mr. Litton makes much of the absolute nature of the emergency powers, in particular of the power of detention. All emergency powers are, of course, in essence absolute in that they involve departure from the normal processes of the rule of law. But the powers of detention in Hong Kong are tempered by the review proced- ure which Mr. Litton mentions. Under this procedure a detained person can lodge objections against his detont- ion to a Committee of Review immediately after the order is made and thereafter at intervals of not less than two months. The Committee is independent to the extent that the chairman is a judicial officer and the members come from a panel of non-officials. It is certainly correct
/that
Anthony Royle, Esq., M.P., House of Commons,
LONDON, S.W.1.
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