54384/36
My dear Strickland,
3
The Church House,
Great Smith Street,
S..l.
28 Septe ber, 1948.
Ana'd (6).
13
The Hong Kong Prevention of Corruption Ordinance, 1948 (39 of 1948) has come to me for examination. I am not very happy about section 9 and I enclose a copy of a letter which I have written about it to griffin in Eire. I hope to have an opportunity of discussing the matter with him before he returns to Hong Kong but I thought that I had better let you too know my views in case the section in question should give rise to any difficulty or adverse local criticism in the meantime. I do not suppose for a moment that any judge would adopt the strict, literal construction of section 9 to which I refer in paragraph 2 of my letter to griffin so there is probably no need for an immediate amendment, though I must leave that to your judgement. Nevertheless the fact that it is theoretically possible to construe the section in this way is a defect which must be cured sometime as it will be if the redraft of the last three lines suggested in paragraph 3 of my letter to griffin is adopted.
2. There are also two points of interpretation and one constitutional point which I hope to raise with Griffin. They are:-
THE HON. G.E. STRICKLAND.
(1)