XN000022-1973-07-26 — Page 2

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Thursday, July 26, 1973

GOVERNMENT ACCEPTS COMMISSION'S RECOMMENDATIONS

The Government has accepted the recommendations made by Sir

Alastair Blair-Kerr in the report of the first part of his commission

which is published today.

Sir Alastair's first recommendation proposes an amendment to

Section 10 of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance. This would abolish

the requirement that the Attorney General must inform a suspect that a

prosecution against him for an offence under this section was being

considered. In addition, Sir Alastair has recommended that it should no

longer be necessary for a suspect to be given the opportunity to make

representations before a decision to prosecute is taken.

"It is very important," Sir Alastair states in the report,

"that we should retain a provision to the effect that no prosecution be

instituted without the consent of the Attorney General; but I strongly

recommend that this community does not continue to tie the hands of its

Attorney General, and its police force, by permitting section 10(2), in

its present form, to remain on the statute book."

The Commission's second recommendation proposed that "consideration

be given to the desirability of introducing legislation empowering the

authorities to compel a person suspected of an offence under the Prevention

of Bribery Ordinance to surrender his travel documents to the Police

upon an order being made to this effect."

/A spokesman