Hon. Colonial Secretary,
T 35076
12-10-1904
As the law stands it is not allowable to appoint either of the Judges of the Supreme Court to be Judge of the High Court of Weihaiwei.
By the 11th Section of the Supreme Court Ordinance 1873 "No Judge of the Supreme Court shall be capable of accepting, taking, or performing any other office or place of profit or emolument not authorised by law on pain that the acceptance of any such other office or place as aforesaid shall be and be deemed in law de facto an avoidance of his office of Judge and the salary thereof shall cease and be deemed to have ceased accordingly from the time of the acceptance of such other office or place."
The Office of Judge of the High Court of Weihaiwei would be an "office or place" the acceptance of which by a Supreme Court Judge is prohibited. But even did the prohibition not exist I think that so long as the Supreme Court consists of but two Judges such an appointment would be inconvenient in the interests of the Colony.
If the number of Supreme Court Judges can be increased to three I think that Weihaiwei may with great advantages both to that Dependency and to this Colony be included within the Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Hongkong, Weihaiwei bearing a fair proportion of the cost of the additional Supreme Court Judge.
The Judges then could without dislocation of Officials or of Judicial work take turn to do circuit work at Weihaiwei. The time necessarily to be occupied by the Judge in travelling between places so widely apart and so indirectly connected as Hongkong and Weihaiwei would, I believe, be found to be longer than apparently is assumed.