Per 27 87 21:17 No.384 .18
IFFORD CHANCE -..
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CLIFFORD CHANCE
高僂紳律師行
I am quite willing to recommend to the Government that we seek an opinion from an internationally recognised professor of British constitutional and international law and I can already think of two professors we have used in London in the past; however, before making any such recommendation, I should like to identify with precision the issues upon which they should be asked to advise. For example, should they deal with the constitutional status of Hong Kong in 1876? If the issue with which you are concerned is that of whether the extradition request should have been presented by the British Government rather than the Governor of Hong Kong, it seems to me that this is the matter upon which an expert on French public international law should opine since the question in issue is what is required by the Government of France before they entertain a request for extradition pursuant to the Treaty. Likewise, the question of whether a note from the Embassy, rather than the Ambassador, suffices also appears to me to be a question of French law.
Turning to your fax of 22 April 1993, I have the following comments:-
2.
3.
I will leave you to follow up your request to the Embassy for a copy of the note. Since dictating the first part of this letter, I have heard that it is unlikely that the note was signed by the Ambassador,
At the time of the events, the maximum sentence for each of charges nos.5 and 9 was seven years. Although the sentence is soon to be increased, both common law and the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance provide that a convict will not face any increased sentence introduced after the time of the commission of the offence. The maximum sentence for each of charges 21, 22 and 23 is ten years. Theoratically, DRS could be sentenced to the full period on each of the charges; however, the sentencing judge is bound to take into account numerous factors when fixing the sentence and I would have thought it most unlikely that a sentence of longer than fourteen years will be imposed. One of the co-conspirators, Dato Hashim Shamsuddin, returned voluntarily and pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges and two charges of accepting corrupt advantages. He was sentenced to four years in prison but this was increased on appeal to ten years.