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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 15 February 1989
香港立法局 ——————————一九八九年二月十五日
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include a requirement of seven years' employment in Judicial or Government Legal Service, three of which must have been spent on work appropriate to the practice of a Hong Kong solicitor. Clause 4 of the Bill imposes, in effect, an annual quota of 10 on the number of solicitors who can enter private practice by this route.
A number of the lecturers in the Department of Professional Legal Education of the University of Hong Kong are lawyers qualified in countries other than Hong Kong. They teach subjects related to the practice of law here and it would be in the best interests of students if their lecturers have actual experience of practice in Hong Kong. This principle is recognized already by the university which permits lecturers to have a limited right of private practice. Accordingly, clause 3 of the Bill provides that those lecturers qualified in the countries listed in the Schedule should, under certain circumstances, be eligible to be admitted by the Chief Justice as Hong Kong solicitors. Those so admitted will not be permitted to practise on their own account or in partnership. And if a law lecturer, who has been admitted as a solicitor under clause 3, ceases to be a law lecturer, then he will cease to be a Hong Kong solicitor.
I turn next to the admission of barristers. A barrister qualified in the United Kingdom is currently entitled to be admitted to the Hong Kong Bar regardless of how long he has lived in Hong Kong and without further examination or qualification. The Chief Justice's Committee recognized the apparent concern of the UMELCO Panel of the danger that the admission of such barristers, if so readily granted and particularly in large numbers, might deter young Hong Kong people from becoming barristers and thus inhibit the development of a strong, independent local Bar. It is also recognized that, due in part to the pressure on places in the Law Faculty of the University of Hong Kong, there is a number of Hong Kong residents who, with a view to returning to and practising as barristers here, obtain their qualifications in the United Kingdom and are called to the Bar there. They should be encouraged to return to Hong Kong.
Clause 9 proposes to restrict admission to the Hong Kong Bar by United Kingdom barristers by requiring an applicant:
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to have had at least three years' practice in the United Kingdom; or
- to be a Hong Kong permanent resident; or
to have Hong Kong as his natural place of domicile; or
to have been ordinarily resident in Hong Kong for at least seven years.
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