HKCK 14/9
Dear Dand,
CONFIDENTIAL
8 May 1969.
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بیتا
One month
for reply ANG
8.5769.
is you
I am sorry that you have not had an earlier reply to your letter CR 9/6/3231/59 of 13 January to Arthur Galsworthy about the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) (No. 2) Ordinance, but our Legal Advisers have been giving further thou ht to the matter in the light of the points raised in your letter. know, Arthur has been away a great deal and how he is ill.
2.
As regards the legal position, the statement in the first sentence of paragraph 2 of our waving Despatch was based
on a dictum of Earl Loreburn in the House of Lords case
Boott v Scott (1913) A.C. 417 at 445. Our Legal Advisers say
that the sentence was not intended to imply that there were no common law exceptions to the general rule.
3.
I can assure you that we are only too well aware of the practical difficulties to which you refer in your third paragra h - difficulties which, we know, are particularly enhanced by the special circumstances in Hong Kong. It was in an effort to go as far as we could in meeting those problems that we put forward the proposals in paragraph 6 of our Despatch. On the second of those proposals, we feel that the point made in your fourth paragraph could be met by providing that the Governor would make his order only after the Chief Justice had requested him to do so.
4.
Arthur Grattan-Bellew has mentioned the matter to Michael Hogan and has arranged to have a further talk with him.. May I suggest that you discuss the matter with him on hi: return to Hong Kong? We hope that thereafter you will agree to the proposals set out in paragraph 6 of our Saving espatch, which I must say frankly are the minimum that we feel would meet the
case.
HIS EXCELLENCY SIR DAVID TRENCH, GCG, MC HONG KONG.
CONFIDENTIAL
youn
(J. O. Moreton)
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