TNAG-0189-FCO40-225-Chinese-marriages-in-Hong-Kong-1969 — Page 72

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the consent, financial means, maintenance and custody of the children should be made mandatory, and that the court should be assisted by counsel acting in the public interest. Since applications for the registration of divorce agreements will presumably be made by the parties jointly, the Sub-Committee feels that a procedure should be established whereby the registrability of each agreement would be tested at the suit of the Queen's Proctor (i.e. of the Attorney-General in his capacity as adviser to the Crown in matters. of matrimonial law), who would be responsible for instructing counsel to cross-examine the parties on the matters referred to above before the judge in open court. The Queen's Proctor would also be responsible for making any further investigations that might seem necessary, either on his own initiative or on the instructions of the court. It ought to be open to the court to hear the parties separately, and the judge should be empowered, where necessary, to call for the evidence of medical practitioners, probation officers and other social workers. He ought also to be empowered to examine any report made in respect of the marriage by a mediator acting under the auspices of, e.g. the Secretariat of Chinese Affairs, should the matter have gone to mediation previously. (The Sub-Committee would not wish to abolish the mediation facilities which exist in the Colony, though if, as they would hope, a unified divorce law were adopted for all Hong Kong people, it would hardly appertain to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs; rather, it is to be hoped that proper marriage guidance facilities will be established more generally in the Colony, and the Sub-Committee would not oppose the idea that the court should have power, while adjourning applications for registration of divorce agreements, to refer the parties to mediation in suitable cases. This ought not, however, to obviate the need for proper examination of agreements in court, even where reached through mediation).

74. As a general rule, the Sub-Committee feels that there should be a waiting period before a divorce agreement would become effective after registration, primarily in the interest of the wife. It could be shortened in special cases at the discretion of the judge. It is also felt that in certain circumstances there should be an abbreviated procedure to cover cases which would, in English

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