2) рус
Miss Bliss
1) Copy to Mr / Paypher
j
Reference
& to Mr Hannis in Hong King, Mease
24/1 MBT
Mr Rycroft
HKD 384/1
Miss Barnes-Jones, HKD, FCO
28 JAN 1993
INDEX
MEMOIRE INTRODUCTIF OF THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE ON THE SANIMAN CASE
1.
I went rapidly through the mémoire introductif on Saniman with Mme Masse-Dessen yesterday evening. She said that she had been surprised not so much by the content as by the timing of this initial reaction to the Conseil d'Etat by the Ministry of Justice. She said that, in the normal way, such a mémoire would be written after her more detailed piece. She had asked herself whether the government might be trying to rush through a ruling by the Conseil d'Etat before the election. But she had concluded that there were simply too many stages to go through.
2.
She also reminded me that at any stage Saniman himself, through his lawyer, could intervene. On balance, she thought that it would help to slow things down if he did intervene, and asked me whether we would object to her speaking to Saniman's lawyer. She thought it was most unlikely that he was not already in the picture. And if he was not he could be contacted at any moment by the Conseil. It was simply impossible to keep the thing secret and therefore, for example, to prevent Saniman fleeing the country if he thought that things were not going his way. In the light of all this, we agreed that the best approach was for Mme Masse-Dessen to make an approach to Saniman's lawyer at any time she felt she needed to.
CODE 18-77
3. Commenting on the text of the mémoire, Mme Masse-Dessen said that it was less alarming than it seemed. On the first point on page 3, for instance, the competence of the Conseil d'Etat versus that of the Tribunal Administrative did not matter, because if the Conseil considered that it did not have a locus, the papers would simply be transferred to the Tribunal. As to Section 2 on the same page, the Ambassador clearly had the right to appoint a lawyer as any other individual or institution did. Mme Masse-Dessen had two letters from the Ambassador, one in respect of the recours gracieux and another requesting her to put our appeal before the Conseil d'Etat. She was confident that these two letters would be accepted as valid legal documents. I added that if necessary the Embassy could send a note to the Quai, the Ministry of Justice and the Conseil d'Etat confirming that these were indeed
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