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a) approve the attached amendment to Section J (Retirement) of the Colonial Regulations which would apply to Hong Kong only.
A departmental Legal Adviser considers this to be necessary and
Hong Kong have agreed.
Background and Argument
3. After the signing of the Joint Declaration the Hong Kong Government recognised that arrangements would need to be made to retire certain civil servants early, due to the constitutional
change which will take place in 1997. A Limited Compensation
Scheme was established in December 1987 which allowed for
certain pensionable officers to retire:
- if circumstances exist which make it unreasonable for the
officer to continue his service
- in the interest of localisation
- to facilitate constitutional change
in the interest of the development of the public service.
4. A covert element of the scheme was put into operation at the same time for Special Branch officers. To date 16 officers have
been "overtly" retired and approximately 700 officers have been retired under the Special Branch element. All these officers
CONFIDENTIAL