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There will also be indirect expressions of opinion (e.g. editorials and letters to newspapers). These should continue to be monitored
and, where appropriate, taken into account.
11. The nature of the
· process is
assessment process will dictate that it
should be undertaken by the Hong Kong Government. However, if the
command credibility in Hong Kong, with Parliament and
elsewhere, it should be undertaken by machinery which will be seen as being distanced from the ordinary machinery of the Hong Kong
Government.
To this end, a special assessment office should be set
up, under the charge of a senior government official (i.e. of
Secretary or Head of Department rank) and reporting direct to the
Governor, to undertake the task of collating, summarising, analysing
and assessing expressions of view received either directly or
through other parts of the government machinery, and of producing a
final report (preceded by a number of interim reports if necessary).
12. The final report drawn up by the assessment office should include factual summaries, by broad sectoral groupings, of all the
views expressed, and an overall assessment of the extent of
acceptance of the draft agreement.
The report would need to be
public could be made aware of
published in Hong Kong so that the
what views have been expressed and could see for themselves that the assessment had been carried out impartially.
13. It is also proposed that either HMG or the Governor should
appoint a small team of independent 'monitors' to
Oversee the work
of the assessment office. The reason for this is to avoid the
criticism that either HMG or the HKG had 'fixed' the assessment.
Moreover it is quite possible that in the absence of official
'monitors', some unofficial group would set itself up in this role. This would be very divisive.
14. It is not envisaged that the 'monitors' should carry out a role similar to that of the Pearce Commission in Rhodesia, and it would therefore be important that the 'monitors' should be given very carefully drawn terms of reference. These would make it clear that
their job was to ensure that the assessment was carried out fairly
by the assessment office,
and that the office had followed the
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