香港總督府
CONFIDENTIAL
(3-7)
RECEIVED IN
GOVERNMENT HOUSE
HONG KONGREGISTRY N, 71
17 MAT 977
ALAI
REP.
(((9)
12th May 1977
7815
Thank you for your letter of 20th April
(OPA/10) about ICAC and the police.
2.
(a)
3.
4.
(b)
(a)
You appear to want ICAC
to be more careful before taking overt action because of the danger of
culpability by association being attributed by colleagues and the public to an innocent person; and
to adopt "less arbitrary methods of enquiry".
Both issues are procedural, namely:
In
the procedures required before authority is given for overt action (after which as you say the fat is in the fire). ICAC the personal authority of the Director of Operations (equates to a Head of a Government Department) is required before any investigation starts, and again before it becomes overt;
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(b) the procedures laid down for subsequent
investigation which in para. 18 of your report are described as 'inquisitorial', but which again are a matter of written instructions within the sanction of the
law.
But none of this is much help to me unless you can be more explicit. In what way do you suggest procedures be amended?
5.
As I said in my previous letter it does seem a great pity that with these things on your mind you did not discuss their procedures with Jack Cater and John Prendergast, and you may consequently be unaware for instance of the very stringent procedures that have to be gone through before an investigation is permitted to take an overt form just because of the problem
Macom Baq, CMA, ONE, QUM
MJ