TNAG-0003-FCO40-39-Commission-of-Enquiry-into-the-Kowloon-disturbances-addition-1968 — Page 9

PART I

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1.

APPOINTMENT AND TERMS OF

REFERENCE

WE were appointed on 3rd May, 1966 under the Commissioners Powers Ordinance (Cap. 86):

2.

'To inquire into and report on--

(a) the disturbances in Kowloon between the 5th and 8th of April,

1966, inclusive;

(b) the events leading up to such disturbances; and

(c) the causes thereof'.

A copy of the instrument of appointment appears at Appendix 1.

CHAPTER 2.

PROCEDURE

3. On appointment, we met to consider the procedure which, subject to the Ordinance and to the terms of our appointment, we should adopt for this inquiry, and determined it after an examination of the reports of a number of similar commissions or tribunals in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

4.

We appointed Counsel and a Solicitor to assist us in collecting, examining and presenting the material on which we have based our report. We would like here to acknowledge the assistance given to us by our Counsel Mr. Denys ROBERTS, O.B.E., Q.C., then Solicitor General, assisted by Mr. F. G. COOKE, Senior Crown Counsel and by our Solicitor Mr. John Sanders.

5. We issued a general invitation to the public, asking those who had knowledge of matters relevant to the Inquiry, to submit this in written statements and we made a public announcement of the procedure we proposed to adopt in considering these statements. This invitation was widely published and special arrangements were made, with the co-operation of the Commissioner of Prisons, for its notification throughout prisons and training centres in the Colony.

6. In order to be as accessible as possible to the public, our sittings were, at the outset, held in the City Hall. When that was damaged by floods in June we continued in the nearby Supreme Court.