TNAG-0193-FCO40-229-Representations-from-Hong-Kong-Bar-Association-particularly--1970 — Page 66

Reference..

HKK 14/14

(18

Mr. Carter

The following are my considered comments on

Sir Michael Gass' letter at (1).

Appointments to the Supreme Court Bench

2.

The case in favour of making a very occasional appointment

direct from the local Bar is set out in the first paragraph of my minute at (5), where I also refer to the necessity of avoiding injustice to members of the Service. A further argument in favour of such appointments, viz. that they satisfy local feelings of patriotism, is probably not very relevant to Hong Kong since it is not a constitutionally developing

country; and, if the member of the Bar chosen for elevation to the Bench were himself an expatriate (as might be the case),

I would not expect the appointment to evoke local enthusiasm

except, perhaps, among members of the Bar themselves. My own

provisional opinion is that a very occasional appointment

direct from the Bar could be justified as in the public

interest and it would seem from Lord Parker's letter of

14 February (flag A) that the Chief Justice is not opposed to

the idea. Unless you think that the arguments against such

appointments advanced in Sir Michael Gass' letter are conclusive (as I do not), I suggest that the correspondence

be raised from the demi-official to the official level and

that the Governor should be asked for his considered views.

The object would be to come to a firm decision in principle on the question whether or not a practising member of the

Bar ought very occasionally to be considered for direct

appointment to the Supreme Court Bench. It would be

unsatisfactory to leave the question of principle in abeyance until the next vacancy, for the Government of Hong Kong are

usually slow in putting forward their recommendations for

filling a vacancy and as often as not ask for a telegraphic

reply.

3. Sir Michael Gass proposes as one of the conditions that

would have to be satisfied before an appointment could be made from the Bar that "(a) officers of sufficient calibre were not

available in the Judicial and Legal Service". We could not, I think, agree to a firm condition to this effect if, as I have suggested in my minute at (5), the object or one of the

objects of making an appointment from the Bar was to introduce onto the Bench a Judge whose professional experience was of a

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