TNAG-0106-FCO40-142-Proposals-to-appoint-an-Ombudsman-1969 — Page 204

POINT

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GENERAL REMARKS

REMARKS

One

The Commonwealth Office brief prepared for the visit of Lord

"The institution of Shepherd to Hong Kong in October 1967 states: Ombudsman or Parliamentary Commissioner might provide a worthwhile independent check on executive actions in the classic system of Crown Colony Government (as in force in Hong Kong). But the constitutional peculiarities will give rise to difficulties. such difficulty is the question of to whom the Parliamentary Commissioner should report. Sovereign power does not rest with the Colonial legislature, which in Crown Colony Government is neither fully representative nor responsible. It rests in the Colony with the Governor and, through him and the Commonwealth Secretary, ultimately with the United Kingdom Parliament.

#1

This difficulty of reporting has been raised in the comments on clauses 22(2) and 30 of the Bill above.

The Commonwealth Office brief continues: "The non-representative

that of nature of the local legislature raises another difficulty devising an adequate sifting procedure before complaints are referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner. Those and other problems would require very careful examination, both here and in Hong Kong."

The difficulty here referred to is the potentially vast number of complaints which would come within the jurisdiction of the Commissioner in Hong Kong. Very large numbers of complaints are excluded from the sphere of the U.K. Commissioner because:

(a) he can only consider a complaint by a member of the public who

claims to have "sustained injustice in consequence of maladministration";

(6)

(c)

(a)

he can only consider the complaint if it is referred to him by a member of the House of Commons:

he cannot consider a complaint in respect of which the person aggrieved has a right to appeal to, or before a tribunal or a court of law;

he can consider complaints only against central Government departments and authorities, not those which falls within the spheres of local authorities: hence the Commissioner's machinery is intended to deal with comparatively sophisticated complaints which cannot be dealt with under other existing procedures. The Commissioner could perhaps be expected to deal with about 500 cases a year. The question raised by the Commonwealth Office is how to devise an adequate sifting procedure before complaints in Hong Kong are referred to the Commissioner. Without such a procedure he could easily be swamped by very large numbers of mundane complaints, many of which do not arise from injustice, and which could perhaps be more advantageously handled by the N.T. and City District Offices, the U.C. Ward System etc.

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