EOE. ED IN
EGILTHY No.51 20 SEP1973
Sir,
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why a letter wither to action
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2.1. Com is/a
180
where stando
on this petition?
We, long-time and permanent residents of Hong Kong, have been interested observers of the frustration felt by Government and the perplexity felt by the public regarding a loophole which stultifies the effective enforcement of the provisions of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance as these affect Crown servants. The public of Hong Kong has been assured that the highest authorities in the Colony are anxious that Britain should not be a safe haven for Crown servants of British birth minded to evade the Colony's Anti-Corruption Laws.
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Why, therefore, should the solution to this problem be frustrated by technicality when a short amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Act, 1967 could close the loophole? it too much to ask Her Majesty's Government to pass and, thought desirable, to pass with retrospective effect an appro- priate amendment to rectify the position which would satisfy the great public demand that exists in relation to this matter in the Colony? There is no constitutional bar to such a solution, particularly as Hong Kong remains a Dependency of the Crown.
It must be highly relevant to note that under the powers reserved to Her Majesty under the Royal Warrant, Letters Patent and Royal Instructions exercised with the advice of Her Ministers, Her Majesty did not see fit to implement Her power to disallow this particular Ordinance, containing as it does extremely heavy penalties for contraventions of the provisions in question by Crown servants. The inescapable implication must be that, regardless of the fact that offences were created hitherto unknown to United Kingdom law, it was considered a necessary measure in the words of the Letters Patent "for the peace order and good Government of the Colony". Logically it follows that it is equally necessary for those in contraven- tion of this Ordinance to be made returnable by Warrant under the Fugitive Offenders Act, 1967 to the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's Courts in the Colony.
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We recall the celebrated Hong Kong case which went to Her Majesty's Privy Council where the Crown with the advice of its Ministers in the United Kingdom passed a special Order-in- Council which removed from the Government of the People's Re- public of China the Sovereign immunity which prevented it from being impleaded in Her Majesty's Courts against its will. At the time this Government was a recognized Foreign Sovereign Power. The Order-in-Council unprecedently made that Govern- ment amenable to the Colonial Courts of Hong Kong in relation to a large fleet of aeroplanes and substantial civil aviation assets claimed by it to be a part of its national property. This measure was not introduced by any public demand and so far as the local authorities were concerned the then Governor Sir Alexander Grantham makes it clear in his book "Via Ports" that he felt "unhappy" about the exercise of this power and goes on to say that it was "altogether a sorry business"
Furthermore, Her Majesty is not adverse to intervening in the affairs of the Colony, even in the face of strong public feeling as witness the recent exercise of Her power under the Letters Patent to require the commutation of the death sentence passed upon a convicted murderer.
It is plain from the above that political expendiency is not irrelevant to legislative process concerning jurisdiction
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