TNAG-0318-FCO40-354-Legislation-for-immigration-and-deportation-in-Hong-Kong-1971 — Page 157

lu.migratio.

From China Mail

Bill is a gag

SIR:

13th August 1971

Your correspondent, Mr J. Greene, says I am working for justice only if the victims are Chinese.

This is untrue. He should consider the percentage of Chinese in the community, and the proportion of them who are underprivileged compared with Europeans.

However, he is right that I have been remiss in not speaking up on the new Immigration Bill, 1971.

I was busy with my homework on the Bill when his letter appeared, having had too much homework recently to do it carlier.

I am not a lawyer, but I would consider the Bill is most likely "ultra vires" since our British passports (and I have one myself) say that we are "citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies."

As this is granted from London, I do not know if the Hongkong Government has power to rescind this citizenship. Perhaps some lawyer would comment.

One purpose

The new Bill can only have one purpose: to try to get rid of what Mr Greene calls "anyone who is a thorn in its flesh."

It seems to warn that if you open your mouth within three years of residence you will be deported contract officers and exchange students, beware!

-

SO

If after three years of enforced silence you speak up, no matter how long you have been here, 10 years or more, you may not get back should you go on a much-needed rest or a visit to your relatives.

Another shocking factor is that there is no mention of charges having to be

proven.

The potential deportee can be kept under lock and key without lawyer or magistrate, incommunicado, and just bumped out of the colony on a decision

Immigration

Bill 1971 "ultra vires."

ELSIE Elliott

made by that body behind closed doors which goes under the name of the

· Governor-in-Council, which gets its information on its victim from sources not disclosed.

The present regulations on the Detention and Deportation of Aliens, to this day used on Chinese “aliens" who appear before a secret tribunal of three, can expel a Chinese or detain him without proven charges but merely on hearsay evidence given by one policeman, witnesses and lawyers not being called.

Some years ago these regulations were used to try to get rid of men who had exposed drug traffickers.

The same could happen under the new Bill, without even the mock trial: the Governor-in-Council being judge, jury and witness.

While long-term residents are trying to think up ways and means to give us all bere a sense of belonging, this Bill seems aimed at making us all realise we are here, not because we are British, but solely at the pleasure of the Hongkong Government. 1

Are our legal men going to take up this matter before it is too late?

+

E.

ELLIOTT

indind soum

"uruutiara

From South China Morning Post

Check called on

HK

14th August 1971

entry bill

A solicitor called on Government yesterday to restrict the power given to immigration officers under the new Immigration Bill, and to broaden the scope of Hongkong belongers." Speaking to the Kowloon Lions Club yesterday Mr Edmund Chow, who is Secretary General of the Civic Association, said "the Bill has caused a good deal of concern among many people.' He appealed to Government "to qualify the power of the immigration officers to a certain extent.”

"For example, the power to refuse to land should be given to a chief immigration officer, or above, with the written instruction of the Director or the Deputy or the Assistant Director, and persons who have ordinarily been residents here for three years or more should not be subject to this section,” he said. Under the Bill, an assistant immigration officer may refuse an immigrant permission to land in Hongkong without stating a "Although it has been emphasised by the Attorney General that this discretion will not be exercised at random, it is highly undesirable and unwise to give such a wide power to an immigration officer of such low rank who might have just finished his training," Mr Chow asserted. reason, he said.

"The sphere of belongers should be widened," he advised, “in that Government should accept applicants who have been residents here for a continuous period of five years to become a belonger of Hongkong.

The Bill defines "belongers" as those born in the Colony, British subjects by naturalisation in Hongkong and the wife and children of belongers.

Mr Chow also recommended establishment of a tribunal to hear evidence concerning deportation and removal orders.

He criticised the Bill's provisions which empower the Governor in Council to deport an immigrant who has been found guilty in Hongkong of any offence punishable by imprisonment or whose deportation the Governor in Council deem conducive o the public good.

"Many of the trivial and minor traffic offences are punishable with imprisonment,” he noted, “and the question of conducive to he public good depends on which angle you look at it. It indeed equires the perspicacity and the logic of the person who xercises this power."