TNAG-0030-FCO40-66-Relations-with-China-1968 — Page 56

in time to be used to any great effect in the present situation,

it might stand you in good stead in the unhappy event of a

repetition of recent troubles. But there are other difficulties.

The provisions for release on licence in the Criminal Justice Act, 1967 (and in all those Colonial Ordinances which provide for such a system) are concerned only with the treatment of offenders who

have received relatively long sentences: moreover, they provide

for release on licence only after a substantial proportion of the

sentence has been served. In the case of adult prisoners the

provisions in Colonial Ordinances for release on licence are intended to afford special facilities for dealing with habitual offenders or recidivists and this was, in fact, the origin of the system in this country. Its object was to enable the court to impose a long sentence on a convicted person who had committed an offence for which a lesser sentence would normally be imposed, if according to various tests the convicted person qualified as an

habitual offender,

The kind of prisoners whom we are considering in this letter

are clearly not the habitual criminals for which the system of

release on licence in this country and elsewhere was intended.

If the idea of an amnesty in this form is to be pursued in Hong Kong

Special it seems that an entirely new approach would be required.

ad hoc legislation would be needed:

(a)

to empower the Governor to release on licence any prisoner

6 months sentenced to a period of not less than, say,

imprisonment;

(b) to provide in the licence for the recall of the offender

to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence,

calculated from the date of his release;

(c) To provide for the kinds of conditions that would need to

be laid down in the licence to suit the special

circumstances of Hong Kong.

/ It is