CO129-566-11 Somerset Fitzroy- comments on legal profession and administration of the law in Hong Kong 2-8-1938 - 2-8-1938 — Page 6

COPY.

Room 61, Tel. 23998.

SOMERSET FITZROY,

STOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING,

10, ICE HOUSE STRENT,

HONG KONG,

2nd August, 1938.

Sir,

I propose to lay before you certain facts with

regard to the legal professions and administration of the

law in the Colony of Hong Kong with a view to producing

a considerable change in the same.

1. I am a member of the Hong Kong bar and for some

5 years was acting as Public Prosecutor, assistant

Attorney General and occupied in drafting legislation

for the Colony.

2.

The professions of the bar and solicitors are

at present separate.

In other parts of the Eest, viz. in H.B.M.

Supreme Court, China and in the Straits Settlement and

F.M.S. they are joined. In China I am a legal

practioner in H.B.M. Supreme Court.

It seems contrary to good policy to keep the

professions apart here, which is the smallest Colony

and where trials of Original Jurisdiction Actions are

few and far between.

I do not think that such actions taken over a

period of some 10 or 15 years can possibly average 10

in a year.

Often I know considerably less. Criminal

prosecutions are conducted by a Crown Counsel, lately so

called and Assistant Crown Solicitors who have a right

of