Letters to the Editor
XX
Sem 15/11/68
DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL
Sir, In the course of the at- tacks on my letter to The Times the point I tried to make in it has been overlooked. Perhaps this is because only one news- paper not yours, Sir ported the text fully and accurately. Accordingly, I would be grateful for an opportunity to redress the balance.
re-
The basic purpose was to com- ment that it lies ill in the mouth of the British Government to protest at the fact that Mr Grey has been detained without trial by
the Chinese Government when they have themselves sanc- tioned the detention without trial of local Chinese Communists. stand by my view that in this the British Government is being hypocritical and is applying double standards in international relations. The last paragraph of my letter (which you did not print) pointed out that if we show that we are prepared to waive the rule of law when it suits us we cannot be surprised or feel aggrieved if the Chinese Government are unimpressed by our protests when they in their turn waive the rules of inter- national relations when it suits them.
Nothing in my letter suggested that I did not think Mr Grey had been harshly used. Like you, am anxious for his release from what appears to be solitary con- finement without the normal con- sular access. The secondary pur- pose of my letter was to draw the attention of the British public to the existence of the emergency regulations the use of which has put us in a morally weak posi- tion in dealing with the Chinese Government over Mr Grey.
In reply to this, all that has been said so far is that in our case right was on our side-our waiver of the rules was justified, that of the Chinese was not. The Chinese would say the reverse, of course, and it does not really meet the point I made in my letter, but even as to this conten- tion I would disagree.
Both your and Government's main argument is that Mr Grey was innocent and the 54 de- tainees were not. I fear that this is an assumption which you, Sir, cannot make and Government can only ask us to accept. For since the public does not know what the allegations are against the detainees indeed we do not even know who they are we have no facts on which to judge. You would not assume that all those prosecuted before the ordinary courts, on the basis
of the police's reasonable sus- picion against them, were guilty of the crimes charged other- wise we could dispense with courts altogether. Why in the case of every one of these 54 de- tainees are you so ready to make this blithe assumption? Govern- ment say that law officers care- fully examined the cases of all those detained, but we know nothing of the evidence which they thought adequate.
But if we agree (as I do) that the emergencies may require alteration of normal legal proce- dures, must we acquiesce in laws which go so much further than necessary, in laws which on paper at least are more illiberal than those they have in South Africa, just to cite the usual ob- ject of international vilification, Why does Government distrust its judiciary so much that it feels unable to give its Supreme Court judges the task of evaluating the evidence against those accused but instead puts the power, without safeguards, in the hands of one man, the Colonial Secre- tary? If, as Government now say, these people were "openly and deeply involved in violent activities" it is hard to see why they could not have been brought to trial. Certainly, even if these laws were justified at the time, they are not so justified now, and nor is the detention of those held under them.
tion is not only legal but has actually taken place, then the position of the detainees is no different in this respect than that of Mr Grey.
Government's cry that they have been moderate in their ap- plication of these immoderate laws can surely only earn the reply from the Chinese that it is they who have been moderate; we detained 54, they appear to have detained about ten. When we cut the moral ground from under our feet this is the sort of argument we have to resort to.
Finally, Sir, the implication of your leader that by writing my letter to The Times I might have endangered Mr Grey is an unfair way of trying to discredit my point of view and also does scant justice to the Chinese Gov- ernment. My letter has told them nothing they did not already know. If you will refer to the English edition of the Ta Kung Pao of November 7 (my letter was written on the 2nd and published on the 11th) you will see that the Communists did not need me to point out the partial inconsistency of the British
Government's position.
JOHN REAR.
LAST
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Government argues that Mr Grey has had no chance to plead his case before any authority but that the de- tainees have "a chance appeal." As to the first, if we have no contact with Mr Grey, how do we know? As to the second, it is given the lie by the letter written by the Solicitor- General to the Hongkong Bar Association on October 11 last year when he made it clear that the Committee of Review is not in any sense a court of appeal but merely an administrative body (of unknown people) with the function of advising the Colonial Secretary, in whose sole discretion the detention decision remains. In any event it would be a rather hollow right of ap- peal, since legal representation is entirely at the discretion of the Committee and the detainee need only be told as much about the charge against him as the Colonial Secretary thinks fit.
Government finally argues that Mr Grey does not know when he is to be released. Since Government admits in the same paragraph that redenten-
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