HONG KONG BAR ASSOCIATION
Anthony Royle, Esq., M.P.,
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26th November, 1968.
the people of Hong Kong in the form of Emergency Regulations and in particular Regulation 31 of the Emergency (Principal) Regulations which permits the Colonial Secretary to detain any person for a period of up to one year without trial, without expressing any reasons, without having any reasons. There is no requirement for the detainee to be given any reasons for his detention. At the expiration of one year the detention could be forthwith renewed.
The Hong Kong Government has, as we know, used these totalitarian powers so that to this day (nearly a year after the emergency has ended) we are told that there are still some 40 or 50 persons under detention.
The powers which the Hong Kong Government have at present over the liberty of the people of Hong Kong are as absolute as have ever been devised in the history of democratic Government. The detention procedure is contrary to all ordinary standards or international behaviour as laid down by international Courts and arbi- tration tribunals in decisions over very many years. The Attorney General of Hong Kong himsel in referring to the powers in a speech given on January 11, 1968, on the occasion of the formal opening of the Assizės, used these words: "It is an extreme and dangerous power but (the Attorney General added) "it has been used sparingly". The fact that the powers have, as we are informed, "been used sparingly does not make the exercise of such powers any more justifiable which, as the Bar Committee understands it, is precisely the point made in
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cont.
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