JUSTICE
(BRITISH SECTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS)
(HONG KONG BRANCH)
CHAIRMAN
S. V. GITTINS, Q.C.
SECRETARY
I. R. A. MACCALLUM
CORRESPONDENCE TO:
1. R. A. MACCALLUM
MESSRS. WILKINSON & GRIST
JARDINE HOUSE, PEDDER STREET
HONG KONG TEL: 226161
15th December, 1969
Sir Edmund Compton, K.C.B., K.B.E., Parliamentary Commissioner,
The Office of the Parlaimentary
Commissioner for Administration,
Church House,
Great Smith Street,
LONDON.
S.W.1.
Dear Sir Edmund,
In a recent newspaper in Hong Kong you are reported as having made the following comments:- 'you thought that Hong Kong "would be very much wiser to stick very much closer to the English pattern in which all complaints have to be channelled through a member of the legislature". Sir Edmund said he also "advised Hong Kong against drawing too much on the pattern of the New Zealand Parliamentary Commissioner". In summing up, he said he "thought the right thing to do was to continue to staff the UMELCO office in every necessary way to see how it works before we (Hong Kong) went into the idea of a Parliamentary Commissioner" ̧”
I write to ask, firstly, whether you were correctly reported in the said newspaper, as from the enclosed photostatic copy of a letter from Sir Guy Powles, the New Zealand Ombudsman, you will note that Sir Guy wholly dissociates himself from certain remarks attributed to him by a Mr. P.C. Woo (a member of UMELCO) in a recent Hong Kong periodical.
Secondly, I write to enquire whether, assuming you were correctly quoted, you were made fully aware that (a) in the Hong Kong legislature there are NO elected representatives, nor are there any constituencies or geographical areas for which any individual member of the legislature is responsible for, or to; (b) the Unofficial members of the Executive and Legislative Councils (UMELCO) come from a small, tightly-knit, privileged, and on the whole wealthy class which, it is claimed, and I think rightly, does not in any way represent the views of the man in the street.
Please
LART
R.i.
COMMITTEE
GERALD DE BASTO, Q.C.
•
A. J. J. SANGUINETTI
•
C. Y. SHUM
B. H. TISDALL
OLIVER MARK
44/€
7
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