JUD.
25
CONFIDENTIAL
HKA 373/1
Miss Brooks
Legal Advisers
JUDICIAL OFFICERS (SECURITY OF TENURE) BILL: REQUEST FOR AMENDMENTS TO THE LETTERS PATENT
advice on the
1. I should be grateful for your proposals set out in the attached letter of 14 April from Mrs Ip in the Administration Wing of the Chief Secretary's office. The proposals are for the existing arrangements for providing security of tenure to judicial officers other than judges, to be enshrined in law. This will require amendments, most significantly, to the Letters Patent, to the Colonial Regulations, and to the Disciplinary Proceedings (Colonial Regulations) Regulations.
2.
On the face of it, the proposals look unobjectable to me. I shall need to check just how far we went with the Chinese,before considering whether we need to approach them further, but this is an administrative matter. With regard
to the approval sought in paragraph 15, I am not sure that we can agree to the method of proceeding proposed. Although we, at official level, maybe content to process this amendment to the Letters Patent, we cannot guarantee that the Privy Council will agree it. The best advice we could therefore give Hong Kong is that we would be prepared to process the proposal without guaranteeing the results. We clearly could not put this to the Privy Council for their May meeting. Should we allow Hong Kong to proceed on the basis that they will include a clause in the Bill to the effect that it will not be brought into operation until the amendements to the Letters Patent have been completed? this a matter for the Governor - simply to sit on the Bill until we are ready at our end?
Or is
3. In view of Hong Kong's wish to process this quickly, I should be grateful for urgent advice.
Mill offere
M V Stone
Hong Kong Department
WH 304
270 2651
23 April 1992
REGADG
JRB
CONFIDENTIAL