CO129-334 - Governor Nathan - 1906 [5-7] — Page 165

COPY.

No. 2.

Sir,

Enclosure 9.

Chambers,

Supreme Court House,

Hongkong, Srd. June, 1905.

161

is Excellency

I have the honour to bring to Your Excel-

-lency's notice certain matters connected with the Supreme Court

as to which the existing arrangements are very defective.

in the first place the Judges have no

Secretaries, and I have already experienced considerable in-

-convenience from having no clerical assistant. There are, it is

true, Judges' Clerks in name; but they are also Clerks of the Court, and belong to the Registry, where their time is fully occupied. It is very important that there should be attached to

each Judee a Secretary whose time is completely at his disposal:

apart from ordinary correspondence, the principal duty of the

Secretary is to take down Judgments dictated by the Judge in cases where Judgment is reserved, and to make fair copies which

may be accessible to the parties and the public. This takes a considerable amount of time. I need not point out to Your Excel-

-lency that the proper transcription and recording of the Judgments as they are delivered is of the utmost importance

in the administration of justice. I regret to say that there is

absolutely no provision made in the Colony to ensure this: re-

-liancs being placed almost exclusively on the reports given by

the newspapers: the custom being for a newspaper reporter to obtain the Judge's manuscript of his Judgment, and to make what

he can of it.

Sir Matthew Nathan, K.O.M.G.,

Governor, fo...