Mr. Gaminara
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16/1€
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Ombudsman for Hong Kong.
Mr. Laird left the attached note with me yesterday recording the gist of his talk with Mr. Sykes, Secretary in the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. The broad principles in it seem to be right, but we are committed by the Secretary of State's letter of 3 August to the Governor to send "considered views" as soon as possible, (I attach extract from the letter) and we should put this in hand as soon as may be.
2.
I have now seen (I was unaware of this when we had our earlier talk with Mr. Royle) that Hong Kong did in fact send us last year the draft of a Bill prepared in Hong Kong for the establishment of an Ombudsman - this being without prejudice to the question whether the post should be established.
3.
I note also that the Bill was referred to the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner and that they have no comments
(19) on 1968-69 except on one point of detail which has already been passed to
Hong Kong.
file
4.
See munciter
The action now required to give effect to the promises in the Secretary of State's letter:
9/21
19/8/20
clo¢ from Rushford.
5.
(i)
(ii)
To confirm from Mr. Sykes that he has no
further comments to make on the Draft Bill.
We can explain that our new Ministers have
asked the Governor to revive examination of the proposal and, subject to any comments which Mr. Sykes may make.
Have the Draft Bill examined by our own lawyers in the light of the Secretary of State's letter. If this is done we will then be in a position to write further to the Governor.
You may also like to know of the decisions of the Fiji Constitutional Conference on the creation of the post of
These are in paras. 57 59 of the attached copy
Ombudsman.
/of
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.