PERSONAL AND CONFIDENT'LAL,
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Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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The Honourable the Chief Justice
Chief Justice's Chambers
HONG KONG
Your reference
Our reference
HKK 14/6
Date
8 March 1974
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1.
My dear Gooffrey
My apologies are due to you for not having sent an earlier answer to your letter of 5 November about the proposal that District Judges should be given a place in the Table of Precedence and the right to be styled "His Honour Judge X". My own personal view is that there might be something to be said for doing this, but I thought I should consult our Protocol and Conference Department and they have been so pressed with Royal visits etc that they have not had time to express any views.
2. Dear Jackson-Lipkin has as you know assiduously disseminated in various quarters a shower of criticisms of the system of administrating justice in Hong Kong of varying degrees of plausibility and puerility. I think you and I have a fair idea of them, and I need not bother to enumerate them at length.
There are however a few odd points I should like to mention if I may, in case you have views.
3.
4.
First, it is asserted that magistrates and district judges frequently reserve judgment for days or even weeks and then hand out
If so, written decisions. Is there any force in this criticism? should they be induced to speed up the process of delivering judgment, either by working a bit harder or by revising their working schedules so that a magistrate or district judge does not become induly preoccupied with new cases before he has disposed of cases already heard.
5.
Second, Miles gripes about the iniquities of "promotion" and confidential reports on judicial officers - he even talked of the "moral pressure" this imposes on the persons concerned and of a "mad scramble" for promotion by district judges who are nearing 55 lest they have to This seems retire before finding a snug haven in the Supreme Court. piffle before the wind, but have you any views on -
(a) the fact that there are three grades of magistrates, with different
titles Miles appears to think there should be only one sort of magistrate who would remain such all their working lives, but is this feasible? Presumably length of service and consequent experience and maturity ought to be rewarded by increments of salary, and this would mean a pretty long incremental scale. Incidentally someone else (a Mr Lo) has I believe suggested a grade of magistrate designed to attract local lawyers with a flat scale of pay only
/little
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