CONFIDENTIAL
45
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Mr Rushford
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE, HONG KONG
1.
While I was in Hong Kong at the beginning of this month, I went through with the Attorney-General and with the Chief Justice, the suggested changes in the structure of the administration of justice on the basis of the brief which the Governor brought with him for his earlier visit to London.
2.
Most of the proposals are being worked on in Hong Kong on the lines that we agreed with the Governor. But on two questions, legal aid and the retiring age of judges, the conclusions were less favourable than we had thought when the Governor was here. In the present financial situation of Hong Kong where new expenditure is being most carefully scrutinised, the Attorney-General said that he thought it was unlikely that he could get financial sanction for any substantial increase in legal aid for the next year or two. The Financial Secretary confirmed this. I concluded that we were unlikely to achieve much without very firm pressure from here.
But
3.
Secondly on retiring ages, there are as you know personal problems relating to the retiring age of the Chief Justice. the whole exercise is predicated on the success of the plan to raise the general retiring age of the Civil Service in Hong Kong to 60. The Secretary for the Civil Service told me that this was still a considerable distance away from agreement.
When I urged that, as in this country, there was no need to keep the retiring ages of judges and of civil servants in step, both the Colonial Secretary and the Secretary for the Civil Service pointed out that the judiciary in Hong Kong was largely a career service.
Its members had largely entered the old Colonial Service at about the same time and with the same expectations as, for example, members of the administration. If conditions of service got too far out of step, it would be impossible to prevent ordinary civil servants from comparing their lot with the judges. This could create substantial problems.
4.
Since these are the two proposals of which we had the greatest hopes of progress, and since it seems that these hopes were premature, we are left without anything very substantial to say to Lord Gardiner if he raises the whole question, perhaps reminded by Mr Jackson-Lipkin during his summer leave. I put this to the Governor and the Colonial Secretary. They acknowledged the problem but they suggested that if Lord Gardiner did return to the charge, we could legitimately say that a new Chief Justice had taken over; that he was reviewing the whole judicial field in Hong Kong, bearing in mind particularly what Lord Gardiner had had to say to us; but that it was too early for him to have reached any final conclusions.
CONFIDENTIAL
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