TNAG-0356-FCO40-392-Extension-of-European-Convention-on-Human-Rights-to-Hong-Kon-1973 — Page 20

Reference

RECEIVED IN

REGISTRY..12

18 NOV 1972

the application J the Cuventin

Miss Kelly (H K & I OD) to see on retum, please Mr MacLennan (WOD)

1.

Mr Beard's letter refers to petitions and although this may be attributing to him a detailed knowledge which he does not possess, it would seem that he is asking why we do not extend to Hong Kong not only the Convention, but also the right of individual petition. I don't think we need concern ourselves with the substantive Protocols. The first does not extend to any of our Colonial territories, the provision for elections does not make it apt; we ourselves do not accept the Fourth Protocol.

In

2. Our previous actions make it difficult for us to argue that the Europeanness of the machinery for regulating to aplication exclude Hong Kong and, having regard to the source of the Convention in the Universal Declaration, we could hardly attribute any particular Europeanness to the Convention itself. 1953 we extended the Convention to a great number of colonies etc, including Aden, Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. It was subsequently extended to Brunei. The current list of extensions includes all dependencies except Rhodesia, Hong Kong, British Antarctic Territory and some small islands.

3. We ourselves accepted the right of individual petition for the first time in 1966. The question of its extension to dependencies was, therefore, of no moment until after the larger colonies became independent. But following our acceptance of the right, we sought the views of the remaining dependencies and extended the right to certain of them including certain of the associated states. But the right of individual petition does not extend to all the territories to which the Convention itself extends, eg the Convention extends to Jersey and Guernsey but the right of individual petition only extends to Guernsey. In 1972 Brunei, to which the right of individual petition had previous ly extended, ceased to accord that right a departure not hitherto remarked. Therefore, even if we were prepared to extend the Convention, it would be open to us to cite precedents for not extending the right of individual petition. One difficulty here is that we

cannot hide behind a locally-elected legislature in Wang Kay,

4. Having regard to this history, the questions to which we now need to address ourselves are:

(a) Whether we now wish to assume an international

obligation in relation to Hong Kong with regard to human rights. This is what the Convention is about; it is a secondary and external safeguard of fundamental rights. Those rights may be effectively provided for in Hong Kong today as a matter of domestic law. In which case the fact that the Convention does not apply only goes to the absence of external machinery for remedying a breach of those rights if the

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DD 897152 154596 500M 2/72 GM 3643/2