HKK 14/14
Reference..
different kind from that of the average Service Judge. The question of fair treatment for Service Judges is, of course, subsumed in Sir Michael Gass' condition (c).
4. If members of the local Bar were henceforth to be considered pari passu with members of the Service for promotion to the Supreme Court Bench this would, I think, give members of the Service a legitimate grievance that might justify them in asking for compensation for loss of career prospects, as Sir Michael envisages. But if such appointments were to be made only occasional ly so that the Bench contained only one or at the most two non-Service appointees at any one time, a claim for compensation by members of the Judicial and Legal Services on the ground that their career prospects had been materially prejudiced would not in my opinion be justifiable, for the position would not in any way be analogous to the localisation schemes that have been held to justify compensation in other territories.
5. On pensions Sir Michael Gass observes that it would cause considerable resentment in the Service if a directly appointed Judge were to be offered "terms of service better than those available to serving officers". To describe the terms as "better" is, with respect, a complete misrepresentation of the position. If one asks a member of the practising Bar to leave his practice and go onto the Bench when he is, say, in his fifties or late forties, one cannot in fairness expect him to accept pension arrangements designed for people who will have thirty years or more of pensionable service by the time they retire. It is not therefore a case of according the directly appointed Judge "better" pension terms than other people but of modifying the general pensions terms to ensure that such a Judge receives fair treatment having regard to the fact that his actual pensionekle service must in the nature of things be very much shorter than that of an ordinary member of the Judicial Service.
Prosecutions by members of the Bar
6.
I find it very surprising that the Legal Department should outnumber the practising Bar. But so long as the Hong Kong Government maintain a Legal Department of fifty members, I do not see how we can expect them to assign many prosecutions to the practising Bar. I do not know why a Department of this size is thought necessary; but so long as the Government is able to recruit and pay for a staff of that size I suppose the F.C.O. can hardly object. I am interested to see under the heading "Standard of Legislation" that twelve members of the
/Department