Chris F. Patten Esq. 47 Morpeth Mansions Morpeth Terrace London SW1
HKD- for departmental reply please.
19/6
Mu Woodrow ли
414
86 Victoria Road
Barnet, Hertfordshire
11th June 1992
Dobite 2 line ack, pre
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Dear Mr. Patten,
819/0
More congratulations on your appointment to Hong Kong! I'm sure that it will be a great challenge which you'll enjoy immensely. Nothing will be quite the same again.
We lived in Hong Kong some years ago. My cousin is a professor at the university there and another, married to a solicitor who's just finished a stint out there, operated an account for Sachi & Sachi in China. Yet relatively speaking Anglo-Saxons are hardly noticeable in Hong Kong. The irony of 1997 is that the majority of inhabitants initially escaped from the political system in China and succeeded in Hong Kong because they were inate Tories from all walks of life.
I understand that you once wrote to Mrs. T. and criticised her policies which didn't serve you well. A gesture for improvement & to provide democratic benefits appears to produce surprising antagonism. What follows is for constructive thought!
While I profess ignorance of the Hong Kong legal system I suspect that it is similar to Britains. In England there is a major flaw in the system which I fear if of a similar ilk exists in Hong Kong would be exploited by the Communists. Last year solicitors clocked-up £160 million for "dishonesty or incompetence" claims; this year its £200 million. The amount is paid out from a mutual indemnity fund which costs innocent solicitors an ever increasing small fortune in premiums and thus acts as a deterrent when citizens seek justice against solicitors 'negligence', Under Conservative policy one would have expected compulsory indemnity cover to be placed individually on the competitive (or western) market. Nota bene.
The majority of claims paid out are apparently up to 25,000 which proves the extent of the problem, as well as solicitors vested advice. Valid claims of any consequence from the public are declined by the profession or solicitors fail to act honestly knowing that if the client 'finds them out' the mutual system will protect them. District Judges as you know are practicing solicitors and can control the outcome of trials even by denying the defence expert evidence. Thus solicitors 'negligence' in Britain is encouraged by the system. Solicitors are not accountable. Philip Ely sus- pects that "dishonest solicitors could be a magnet for the dishonest client". With organised crime within the very profession that provides constitutional rights in England what could happen in Hong Kong within a legal system in situ on similar cartel principles? It would not surprise me if the communists have already set their sights on a system unlikely to be changed and re- established by what they consider are staid & empirical attitudes.
In Britain some solicitors will acknowledge the problem but cannot afford to openly criticise the system - the Law Society is all powerful and as you know "independant and self-regulating", which smacks of comparison to the communist regime. Pretty hopeless for all your future efforts if the legal system in Hong Kong has the same status and is controlled by a triad already. Britain herself has been unable to surmount the anomaly to democracy.