CONFIDENTIAL
Flag
19
Flag B
Flag &
Mr Wilford
Private Secretary
Secretary Jon
LETTER FROM 'JUSTICE'
11/6.
1. Lord Gardiner, Chairman of the Council of 'Justice',
has written to the Secretary of State, enclosing a copy of
a letter from Mr Henry Litton QC, Chairman of the Hong Kong
branch of 'Justice'. These letters make forceful represen-
tations against four Bills recently introduced into Legi-
slative Council in Hong Kong. The Bills give additional
powers to District Courts and Magistrates, introduce
preventive detention, and widen the powers of the courts to
deal with persons convicted of unlawful possession of
offensive weapons.
2. Mr Sargant, the Secretary of 'Justice', has already
written to Mr Wood on the same subject but in less detail
and in less forceful terms. A submission covering a draft
reply to Mr Sargant's letter was prepared by Mr Crowson and
the Legal Advisers but had not been submitted when Lord
Gardiner's letter arrived. We must now obviously deal with
these representations together.
3. The points in Lord Gardiner's and Mr Litton's letters
go well beyond Mr Sargant's representations and beyond the
replies given by the Acting Attorney General, Hong Kong in
his speeches on the second reading of the Bill on 23 May,
which we had intended to use in answering Mr Sargant.
view of this and of Lord Gardiner's eminence I fear we have
In
CONFIDENTIAL
/no
25