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CONFIDENTIAL
44 E24127
fully answered in a note by the Attorney General of Hong Kong
which was sent to us at the beginning of July. With the
agreement of Hong Kong I passed this note to Justice and have
concurred in their sending a copy to the Hong Kong Bar Association
with the deletion only of the second sentence of paragraph 11.
4.
The council of Justice has yet to consider the Attorney
General's note but will do so before the 24th. It may be that
this will take much of the steam out of their representations.
They also clearly know of the proposed appointment of 2 members
of the Bar to district judgeships, since Mr Sargant said that
Mr de Basto had excused himself from taking part in the delegation
because of his probable forthcoming appointment. The absence of
any members of the Bar on the bench was one of the main planks
of the Hong Kong Bar Association's case, and the new appointments
will make it difficult for them to claim that the district judges
are not up to their job. Nevertheless Mr Sargant has asked that
the meeting with us should take place in any event.
5. Justice have rushed into this affair with accusations of a
serious denial of the principles of justice. But they did not
take the trouble to investigate the real position and were
undoubtedly swayed by the somewhat emotional arguments of
Mr Litton and Mr Jackson Lipkin. Hopefully they will by now
have realised their mistake, but, if not, we need not be too
gentle with them.
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