TNAG-0210-FCO40-246-Briefs-and-background-notes-for-visit-of-Deputy-Under-Secret-1969 — Page 47

CONFIDENTIAL

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 Ombudsman: or rather an office similar to that of the Parliamentary Commissioner in UK or in New Zealand; for Ombudsman is a term wholly inappropriate to constitutional forms 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 some 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 circum- scribed. 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 them and make a report.

There the Commissioner's powers end. It seems 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.

A Commissioner would to some extent be helped by legal powers

of investigation perhaps, although I am not sure the public would

welcome his power to compel them as witnesses. The grant of legal powers might also help to inspire confidence in him. Moreover

Commissioners of this kind have been shevn elsewhere to provide a

very useful protection for the public service by refuting allega-

tions made against them: and of course they do certainly turn up occasional mistakes, mis judgments and so on.

CONFIDENTIAL

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