Sir James McPetrie, K. C.M.G., O.B.E.,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Downing Street,
LONDON, S.W.1.
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAMBERS
HONG KONG
2nd March, 1970.
Dear Stamish.
Application for admission by District
Judge.
It was very good of you to go to so much trouble over the application by J. T. Williams, District Judge, to be admitted to practise here.
The application was at one time set down for hearing on 2nd March, but later postponed until 20th June, by which time Williams will have completed his retirement leave.
In fact, Williams has now accepted appointment as Legal Assistant, Gibraltar, which will, I think, suit him better anyway. So it is unlikely that he will pursue the application.
Nevertheless, unless something is done to prevent it, there are likely to be similar applications from retiring District Judges in the future, particularly from local men who will not want to do nothing at 55, the retiring age for District Judges.
Sir Ivo Rigby intends to write to you to suggest that, in future, a District Judge should, when appointed, be required to give an undertaking, of the same kind as that now required of a Supreme Court Judge, not to practise in Hong Kong when he leaves the Bench. This would solve the problem for future appointments, but I suppose existing judges might be unwilling to give the undertaking. In case this happens, I think it would be helpful if you would obtain the Lord Chancellor's view on the matter.
You referred to a passage in Blair-Kerr's judgment in the Reece application, which suggests that there had been previous applications by District Judges for admission and that these had not been opposed and had been granted. In fact, he was referring to cases (e.g. How, Sanguinetti) where applications for admission had acted as District Judges. There is no instance of a substantive District Judge applying to practise here.
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