ร
3.
Review.
It may answer the points you make if I tell you that as presently constituted the Com- mittee of Review has a Government servant as its
Chairman but that the other members are not persons employed by the Crown and that one of these is a lawyer.
(c) In paragraph 11 you call attention to the fact that the power exercisable under Regulation 31 is of indefinite duration. On this point I can only say that Government has publicly announced its inten- tion of removing from the statute book each piece of emergency legislation as soon as the emergency situation requiring that particular piece of legisla- tion comes to an end. It is recognised that deten- tion is the most drastic of the emergency powers which have been taken by Government, and that they are justified only in a real emergency. It follows that it must be dispensed with just so soon as it can no longer be so justified.
I should like to turn now to the role and functions of
the Committee of Review, and I must say at once that I do not see them in the same light as I think you do. In paragraph 10 you state "The purpose of a Committee of Reivew is presumably to weigh the balance between individual liberty and public interest." Again in paragraph 7 you speak of the two matters in connection with the exercise of the U.K. powers in Regulation 18B which the Courts have indicated they might consider as being properly their concern; namely,
33