Simplex
IMMEDIATE
SECRET
No.257
SECRET
OUTWARD TELEGR
FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES
TO HONG KONG (Sir R. Black)
FED.494/400/01
Sent 18th March, 1958. 21.00 hrs.
Addressed to Governor Hong Kong Repeated
#1 Peking IMMEDIATE.
Your telegrams Nos. 219,220 and 221.
Kowloon Walled City.
I accept your recommendation, supported as it is by Charge d'Affaires, Peking, that prosecution would be the better course. I should accordingly be glad if you would inform your Attorney-General, with whom, of course the decision rests, that so far as public policy is concerned, the best course would be to prosecute.
2.
I am advised that the courts cannot enquire into the basis on which an Order in Council exercising jurisdiction outside the United Kingdom is made and that before the domestic courts the Order in Council is conclusive evidence of the limits of the Crown's jurisdiction.
(31) 3-
3.
On the two points in paragraph 4 of your telegram No.219 I am advised that there would be no advantage at this stage in asking the Law Officers to reconsider the opinion expressed in 1948 on the international law aspects, but the points have been noted in case such a reference should later become necessary.
4.
On the suggestion in your telegram No.221 I am advised that,
on the information available, there would seem to be no advantage in making a new Order in Council rather than relying on the Orders in Council of 1898 and 1899.
ら
5.
Grateful to be kept informed by telegraph at all stages
of action taken in this case.
(Copies sent to Foreign Office for repetition
to Peking.)
Copies sent to:-
Foreign Office
Mr. P. G. F. Dalton
Law Officers' Department
Mr. MacDonald