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QUESTION OF COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION IN HONG KONG Extract from H.E. the Governor's speech on Budget Day (26/2/69)
Next, there is the difficult question of whether we should have an Ombudsaan; or rather an office similar to that of the Parlia- aentary Commissioner in UK or in New Zealand; for Ombudsman is a term wholly inappropriate to constitutional forus of the British type. As a result of much careful study, we are now reasonably clear how a Commissioner of this kind, with powers based rather more on those of the New Zealand Commissioner than on those of the more restricted British Commissioner, could be fitted into the Hong Kong scene.
But should we have one? This is by no means as certain as sone advocates suggest. The image of these Commissioners as all- powerful rectifiers of all grievances is of course very far from the truth. They have no executive powers whatever, and can only report their findings. The essential point about such Commissioners is that they have legal powers of investigation: but where a legal power is granted, that power naturally has to be legally circumscribed. If, as a result, the Commissioner finds he has no power to investigate in any particular case, the complainant is told so and that is the end of the matter. I am told that in New Zealand, for example, some 40% of all matters referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner are thus rejected; nor does this mean, of course, that the remaining complaints were found to have substance only that it was found permissible to investigate then and make a report. There the Commissioner's powers end. It seeas to me we need systems of dealing with complaints more flexible and effective than this: and that indeed, as I have said before, in essence we have them.
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A Commissioner would to some extent be helped by legal powers of investigation perhaps, although I am not sure the public The grant of would welcome his power to compel them as witnesses.
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legal powers might also help to inspire confidence in him. Commissioners of this kind have been shewn elsewhere to provide a very useful protection for the public service by refuting allegations made against them; and of course they do certainly turn up occasional mistakes, misjudgments and so on. -
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