CONFIDENTIAL
SUGGESTED REDRAFT OF PARAGRAPH 1
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In response to the Chairman's invitation, and by way of introduction, Sir Duncan Watson explained that the existence of the double criminality rule in the 1967 Act, which had recently prevented us from sending back to Hong Kong a police officer accused under Section 10 of their Prevention of Bribery Ordinance of being in unexplained control of resources disproportionate to his official emoluments, had caused a serious political problem in our relations with Hong Kong. The Prime Minister was going to Hong Kong on 12 January 1974. He had directed that the opportunity should be taken to resolve unsolved bilateral problems, including this one, before his visit. would therefore be necessary to make submissions to Ministers before the Prime Minister's visit. In the case of the police officer, Godber, the Chinese in Hong Kong felt that the UK Government had failed to take action against a European who was being allowed to live unmolested in the UK. They believed that this would not have been allowed to happen if the fugitive had been a Chinaman. As a result, our image in Hong Kong had been affected. The Godber case has thrown a new light on our decision in 1966 to apply the double criminality rule to the dependent territories. The UK approved the laws of the dependencies and it was not wholly logical for us to put ourselves in the position of appearing to frustrate their operation. This was particularly true in Hong Kong, where there was an official majority in the Legislative Council, as well as the power of disallowance. The power of return would be a deterrent. Under the old law, embarrassment might have been avoided in Godber's case, since he would probably never have come here.
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