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Mr. Laira
(lib/ Flag As
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Reference......
42
A.R (ED.
When approving the attached ministerial submission on the subject of the Hong Kong Prevention of Bribery Bill, the Minister approved Sir L. Monson's recommendation that, in accordance with Sir James MacPetrie's advice, the Law Officers Department should be told of the Minister's decision but not invited to comment on it. This was done in the terms of the attached letter from Mr. Rushford to the Secretary of the Law Officers Department.
2.
We have now received the latter's reply from which it is clear that the matter has been put to the Attorney- General himself whose view is that certain provisions of the Bill (and in particular Clause 10) are contrary to the basic principles of English criminal law and he would not be able to justify those provisions on legal grounds. The Attorney-General assumes therefore that if it proves necessary to answer any criticism in this country about the Bill, the latter will need to be justified on purely political grounds. The Minister may wish to be aware of the position.
3. When approving the submission, the Minister enquired whether Singapore has similar legislation. Singapore has its own Prevention of Corruption Ordinance which does not contain any provision equivalent to Clause 10 of the Hong Kong Bill. The Singapore Ordinance does, however, contain a provision (Section 23) to the effect that evidence of pecuniary resources or property dis- proportionate to an accused person's known sources of income may be taken into consideration by the Court as corroborative evidence of corruption. This is a similar provision to one contained in Malaysian legislation on the same subject.
(A. W. Gaminara) 25 September,1970
The Law Officers' reaction
The expected.
Kun Welf
In Wiljna Min Dear this 2519
wow only
287
K271
En. 2379
These papers can now
be replaced on
fü
which should be be as marted
at (45).
MG
19.9.70
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