in Schedule for information.
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This
overseas etc. Legally necessary?
MIXED/SEPARATES
4.
Leave to the
Courts.
could be useful to consulates could be
How transform
generalized formula into
Guidelines
This is still a vexed issue. We asked the Home Office to
produce a complete list of possible "mixeds" so that we could decide
which were deserving cases. The Home Office have said that this is
impossible. They have however proposed an exception from loss
clause (2(3) of the draft), but this only covers the example of the Gibralter couple. They agree that it should include others and will
undertake more research to discover other examples, but have asked
us to agree that it should be confined to as few people as possible.
Hong Kong have argued that it should be as wide as possible. I
think we should avoid any commitment, but argue that it should
except those who clearly do not have their main connection with Hong
Kong, and whose cases if covered by the Order would be manifestly
unfair. We will only be able to judge when we know the cases. There could be problems with the Chinese if we allowed the scope of
this clause to be drawn too widely.
5.
While the exception from loss clause is very much what we wanted
earlier, we should confirm with legal advisers that this clause is
not ultra vires the Hong Kong Act and is not contrary to the
Exchange of Memoranda. We received legal advice earlier that such a
clause would be both.
SHOULD MIXEDS AND/OR SEPARATES BE ABLE TO APPLY FOR BN(O)?
6.
The Home Office propose that Mixeds should not be able to apply
for BN(O) status, but that separates should. They have however left
the passage in Article 4(2) in square brackets pending our
discussion.
1.
Hong Kong have said that they think that separates should not be
allowed to apply for BN(O) (para m of their telno 681). Our legal
advisers have suggested that as those who lose their BDTC status and those who acquire BN(O) status are supposed to be co-extensive under
the Exchange of Memoranda, neither separates nor mixeds should be
allowed to apply for BN (O) status. The Home Office suggests that there could be problems if people maintained both statuses and
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