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Judiciary for a stable and prosperous Hong Kong before and after 1997, a strong and healthy body of Court Interpreters will have to be built up to assist in the administration of justice.
Our members have shown utter dismay over the procrastination by the administration in dealing with our demands. Nevertheless our reaction to the lethargy of the administration in handling our demands has So far been sensible. As in the instances highlighted above, we acted with dignity and restraint. Our patience however has now been stretched to the limit. It was resolved at the Extraordinary General Meeting held on the 6th of December 1988 that industrial action be resorted to to force recognition of our claims if the administration fails to map out a concrete plan for the improvement of our career prospects.
From the bitter
experience we had in dealing with the administration in the past, we can see that all the proposals we put up, however justified they were, were invariably thrown out with some iniquitous reasoning. We feel it futile and ludicrous to argue with the administration on justification of our claims. We are prepared to abide by the criteria set by the independent Standing Commission on Civil Service Salaries and Conditions of Service whose impartiality and integrity, we are sure, will not be questioned by anyone. We therefore plead with you, Sir, to direct (1) the immediate implementation of the proposals we made in our letter to the Registrar in May 1983; (2) the immediate implementation of upgrading the Court Interpreters handling interpretation and translation work for the High Court to the senior rank; (3) the existing six senior posts be upgraded to the rank of Chief Court Interpreter; and (4) a system be set up for constant review on the Court Interpreter Grade to ensure that the parity in career prospects with the Chinese Language Officers is maintained.
With the implementation of the four requests stated above, the career prospects for the Court Interpreters will be more or less parallel to that for the Chinese Language Officers.
Similar requests were made by us to the Chief Secretary in a petition submitted to him on 31st December 1988 for which no substantive reply has been received to date.
We have since our press conference on 26th November 1988 obtained support from the following bodies and person (Appendix 12):
The Hong Kong Bar Association
1.
2.
The Association of Police Interpreters
3.
The Law Society of Hong Kong
4.
5.
6.
Government Chinese Language Officers' Association
Hong Kong Civil Servants General Union
Letter from Miss Audrey Eu, a distinguished counsel in Hong Kong.