Miss Stoddart MALD
HONG KONG AIR TRANSPORT LICENSING
1.
Reference
HKK184|6
RECEIVED S
10 APROMO
DESK OFFICE
INDEXI
WW. 51
As I have already advised by telephen I think it is unsafe to attempt to answer Laker's complaints without checking the facts with Hong Kong. If Sir Freddie is in a litigious mood his assertions could, if substantiated, make a plausible case in court.
It is
not the fact that the Hong Kong Government expressed views to the Authority, or that it appointed the Authority's members, that would constitute a good case in law, but the combination of publicly announcing the desired outcome and then appointing the tribunal that Sir Freddie asserts.
2. Of course the second and third sentences of para 4 of the draft may be a good defence, but I have not been shown anything that establishes their accuracy. Nor does this fully answer Sir Freddie.
3. I am surprised by the second sentence of para 2 of the draft.. Under Regulation 3(1)(b) of the Hong Kong Air Transport (Licensing of Air Services) Regulations it would seem that every scheduled service by Cathay Pacific ought to have been the subject of a licence application, and I would have thought that some of these services would only have been inaugurated in the last twenty years. Perhaps the position is that the Authority has not had public hearings or a contested application in the last twenty years. However, I have no evidence either way and it may be that the assertion that there has not been an application to consider for twenty years may be is correct.
4. It is not for me to comment on policy and I must therefore assume that the last sentence of paragraph 2 of the draft reflects an assessment made after comparing section 3 of the 1971 Act and Reulation 11 of the Hong Kong Regulations.
5. On small points of detail, I think that in the first sentence of para 2 it is more usual to speak of Regulations being "made" rather than "issued". I believe that Mr Kean's correct title when employed by the CAA was "Secretary and Legal Adviser",
6.. The second sentence of para 5 implies that the timing of ATLA hearings is directed by he Hong Kong Government.
Is this the
case or is it the ATLA itself which decides when to hear an applicat ion?
Richard Gardiner
R K Gardiner Legal Advisers
8 April 1980
cc Mr Clift (HK & GD)
tra Dow
CONFIDENTIAL