SALAAK
Introduction
CONFIDENTIAL
THE HONG KONG JUDICIARY
1.
At the fourth meeting of the JLG, when discussing civil
service matters, the British side informed the Chinese side that the
Hong Kong Government was examining the terms of employment of
members of the judiciary with a view to attracting more local
candidates.
The Hong Kong Government has now completed this
examination and as a result plans to introduce a number of changes.
Background
2.
(a)
(16)
(c)
Members of the judiciary fall into three main categories:
judges of the Supreme Court including the Chief Justice and
Appeal Court judges and High Court judges;
District Court judges; and
magistrates.
In addition there are members of the judiciary in special
fields, for example, registrars, deputy registrars, and assistant
registrars of the Supreme Court, coroners, presidents of Labour and
Land Tribunals, etc. A table showing the composition of the judiciary is at Annex A. Supporting staff working in the judiciary
(e.g. clerks, secretaries, interpreters, etc) are civil servants
and not members of the judiciary.
3.
At present the judiciary is overwhelmingly expatriate.
There are only 5 local judges out of 33 in the Supreme Court, 6 out
of 32 in the District Court and 12 out of 54 in the magistracy: 12
out of 22 other members of the judiciary are local.
CONFIDENTIAL