TNAG-0398-FCO40-444-Appointments-to-supreme-and-district-courts-from-the-Bar-in--1973 — Page 71

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Stuart

WORD

12.3

mich fand to see

Azs

Mr Wilford

12/3

Mr Locan

مسارک

Mr Fifost also S

to see

This is a w

awary

unsatisfactory situation.

ni fiturk should report to

are immediaty after his

C.J.

with the wo

A-R.

MAGISTRATES AND JUDGES IN HONG KONG

1.

Flag A

Flag B

11/E AM Flag &

imme to

A.R.R.

12.3

I minuted on 14 December about the appointment of

magistrates. Mr Royle then asked how we could improve the

calibre of the magistrates and said he would like to write

to Mr Peter Rees MP. I had a submission on the subject of

magistrates in draft, but Mr Rees has now written to Mr Royle

about appointments from the Hong Kong Bar to the Bench, in

much the same terms as he wrote to the Lord Chancellor on

19 October.

MAGISTRATES

2.

We have discussed the recruitment procedures and the

calibre of the candidates with Mr Fifoot, the Legal Counsellor

who usually sits on the Crown Agents Recruitment Board for

magistrates for Hong Kong. He considers that the quality of

those recruited is extremely varied, and does not consider

that the standard of recruitment is as high as was the case

when the Colonial Legal Service was the size it was after the

last war. The field is not as large as it used to be. It

tends to include people such as assistant solicitors in firms,

youngish men in local government and elsewhere who want to see

the world, and older people who think their prospects in their

present job are not good. On one or two occasions Hong Kong

have taken on people whom Mr Fifoot would not have recommended

but this is probably because of the need to fill the vacancy

and the difficulty of finding anyone better.

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13.