OND
CONFIDENTIAL
From: J G H Dickinson Secretariat (Overseas) (Commitments)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE Room 5314
Main Building Whitehall London SW1A 2HB
Telephone (Direct Dialling) 01-218
(Switchboard) 01-218 9000
ext
2084
869
Mr Woode will n
+ BU on file.
Your reference
N 21/12
Mr Robert Footman
HKD
FCO
King Charles Street
HKB 011/3
RECEIVED IN RE ..
3 1 DEC 1987
Our reference
D/Sec (0) (C)/6/7
Date
2 December 1987
OFFICER
INDEX
PA
don T
Dear Robert
HONG KONG CLAIMS AGAINST BRITISH FORCES
486
Your predecessor, Clinton Leeks, wrote to me on 17 August 87 asking that MOD consider alteration of the legal status of British Forces in Hong Kong. The principal reason for this would be to establish a more helpful precedent than the current position in order to ensure that the PLA, when they come to station forces in the territory after 1997, may be subject to civil action in Hong Kong courts. Mr Leeks suggested a number of ways in which the desired effect could be achieved.
2. The present situation is also very unsatisfactory from the MOD's point of view, for two main reasons. Firstly, and of particular importance, Section 8 of the local Crown Proceedings Ordinance urgently needs to be brought into line with the current provision of our own Crown Proceedings Act 1947, which was amended in May this year by the passage of the Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Act 1987. Such action should put Gurkha and locally-employed Chinese servicemen on an equal footing with UK-based Servicemen in this country and elsewhere, and enable them to claim damages agains the Crown in the Hong Kong Courts; something they are unable to do at present. Secondly, just as the Crown Proceedings Ordinance makes it impossible for Hong Kong residents to sue the Crown in right of HMG in UK (and therefore the British Forces in Hong Kong), so it also makes it impossible for the Crown to sue Hong Kong residents and their insurers in local courts. Our inability to pursue claims by legal action has led to a number of unsatisfactory settlements over the years. MOD therefore has a financial interest in seeing change, and we are willing in principle to support a move to permit Hong Kong residents to sue us, provided we thereby obtain the right to sue them. This facility would presumably also be inherited by the Chinese after 1997.
3. Of the four options he put forward, the one Mr Leeks suggested might find most favour with the Hong Kong Government was that spelled out in his paragraph 6(b) namely an amendment to the Crown Proceedings Ordinance. He proposed that such an amendment need deal only with British Forces. MOD would support this option in broad terms.
-
However,
CONFIDENTIAL