TNAG-0280-FCO40-316-Visit-of-Parliamentary-under-Secretary-of-Foreign-and-Common-1970 — Page 35

CONFIDENTIAL

ANNEX A

OMBUDSMAN FOR HONG KONG

1.

Extract from the Governor's letter of 17 September.

"Turning now to your last point, Unofficial Members

are not so much opposed to the idea of a Parliamentary

Commissioner type of institution in sume form as con-

vinced that, in the present Hong Kong context, we can

produce a better-suited and more effective solution than

the orthodox une. People here would quite fail tu

understand that an orthodox Commissioner was not just a

part of the Guvernment machine if he reported to the

Governor; or a sort of super-Governor if he reported

Further, Unofficial Members have pointed

independently.

out that the legal limitations under which he would have tu

work, even in the less restricted form in which our legis-

lation is held in draft (against the advice of the United

Kingdom Parliamentary Commissioner, who has already been

consulted in some detail), would quickly result in the

institution being brought intu contempt: since the great

bulk of the representations made to him would not relate

tu administrative error but to challenges of established

policy and requests for personal privileges which a

Commissioner would have to turn down out of hand. The

system which we are trying out does not suffer from these

disadvantages to anything like the same degree.

2.

Finally, on the practical side, the difficulties

of finding someone suitable to perform these duties would be

CONFIDENTIAL

/very......