HKK 14/8
CONFIDENT IAL
Hong Kong Department
9 February, 1970
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Notes
bu 9.3.20
11/2
Prevention of Bribery Bill 1970
Thank you for your letter of 31 January about the above Bill.
We are grateful for the extent to which you have felt able to meet our objections and it seems that the outstanding queries are now confined to those relating to Clause 10 and Sub-Clauses 14(1)(a) and 14(1)(c). There is also a point of clarification arising out of Clause 15.
Clause 10
We appreciate and sympathise with the arguments in your letter, but there is little doubt that any proposal to retain these clauses will require consideration at Ministerial level,
The Prime Minister's directive to which I referred in my letter of 21 January was a general directive to apartments in Whitehall concerning the procedure to be followed in considering matters of particular legal difficulty which raise political aspects of policy. It was not intended for the guidance of Colonial governments and you would therefore not have been aware of its existence.
Sub-Clauses 14(1)(a) and (c)
It is not clear from the enclosure to your letter whether you intend to modify these Sub-Clauses in any way to meet the points raised in the enclosure to my letter of 21 January. We feel that there is some substance in those points and would be grateful to learn in what manner you propose that they should be met.
Clause 15
We note that you intend to amend this Clause with a view to preserving the confidential nature of instructions to a legal adviser from his client. We should be grateful if we could be provided with a draft of the Clause after it has been amended to meet this point.
It would, I suggest, be simplest if all the above matters were dealt with in the formal communication to which you refer in the penultimate paragraph of your letter. Thereafter we shall do our utmost to ensure that the necessary decisions are taken without delay.
D. T. E. Roberts, Esq.,
CBE
(W. S. Carter)
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.