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Mr. Godden
A reply is required to the attached letter from
Mr. John Tilney, MP., to Lord Shepherd. A draft is
attached which has been the subject of consultation with legal advisers (Mr. Cruchley). It will be
seen from one of the enclosures to his letter that
Mr. Tilney has already discussed the subject matter
of this correspondence with Sir David Trench and we can, therefore, take it that he is well acquainted
with the background and the difficulties involved, The letters from Mr. Litton to Mr. Tilney are a continuation of the campaign against emergency regulations which began with a letter to The Times of 11 November, 1968 from Mr. John Rear of the University of Hong Kong. The principal items of that correspondence are attached.
2.
Mr. Litton's main arguments appear to be twofold,
viz: that
(a)
emergency powers are no longer required in the eased situation in the Colony;
(b)
if, in the case of the power of detention,
the provisions of Regulation 31 of the
Principal Emergency Regulations were brought into line with the provisions of the
Emergency (Deportation and Detention)
Regulations there would be greater safe- guards.
3. The draft is directed towards replying to these points. Mr. Cruchley has pointed out, with regard to (b), that in law (although not in practice) there
is one important difference between the procedures
in Regulation 31 and in the Deportation and Detention
Regulations. The former do not lay down as an
entitlement that the detainee should be told the
reasons for his detention. (As you know, it is, however, the practice to do so). r. Cruchley says that such an entitlement is usual in emergency regulations. This is something we must look into.
in the respect I suspect that, the Hong Kong Principal Emergency Regulations, which date back to 1956, may be out of
date and out of line with other more recent colonial emergency legislation. Since invariable practice makes up for lack of entitlement on this point, I do
not think that this vitiates the observation in
paragraph 4 ...