Ms Barrett
CONFIDENTIAL
From:
Paul Fifoot
Legal Advisers
Date:
6 September 1990
17
RECIPROCAL ENFORCEMENT OF CIVIL JUDGMENTS
1.
This is a useful paper by Mr Keller. It provides some understanding of the way in which the relevant provisions of the CPC may work in practice.
2.
I would not dissent from Mr Betts's view that an action on a foreign judgment does not constitute a sufficient basis for a claim of reciprocity and, in any event, I would have thought that with 1997 in mind some procedure other than that } involved in an action on a foreign judgment is desirable.
3.
As regards paragraph 15, one possibility is that the Chinese will not apply the foreign judgment part of their CPC, because Hong Kong is not "foreign" and because the provisions of Article 165 of the CPC do not fit, Hong Kong's courts not being local people's courts.
4. There is every good reason in seeking to develop judicial contacts and mutual assistance provisions between China and Hong Kong and, if they are to be developed, negotiations through the political channels are inescapable. But it could well be that there is advantage in developing mutual understandings through study visits as Mr Keller suggests. The purpose of such study visits would be to see how each other's systems work and how the French, Belgian and Polish agreements are working in practice. If unofficial drafts, not necessarily in treaty language, are worked out as a possible basis for negotiations through the appropriate channels, so much the better.
3 PFABJ
CONFIDENTIAL
Paul Fifoot