TNAG-0397-FCO40-443-Problem-of-increase-in-crime-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 130

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28 JUN 1973

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Hongkong lawyers fight new laws

By Marcel Berlins Legal Correspondent

Lawyers practising in Hong kong have accused the colonial administration of forcing through laws severely under mining the rule of law. They have called on the Queen to use her powers of disallowing the legislation.

Letters received from Hong. kong lawyers by Justice, the British all-party lawyers' organ- ization, claim that by these laws the administration there is attempting to exert improper influence over the judiciary, under the guise of a campaign to fight violent crime. The letters say the intervention of the British Government was necessary. "if any semblance of the adherence of the rule of law is to be retained ".

Earlier this month, at the request of Lord Gardiner, the former Lord Chancellor and chairman of Justice, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, raised these questions with the Gover

nor of Hongkong, Sir Murray MacLehose. Despite this, how ever, the laws complained of received the Governor's assent last week and will come into force unless the Queen, acting on the advice of the Goveru ment, disallows them under letters patent.

In his letter to Sir Alec, Lord Gardiner said that the laws would ** create a situation far below the standards which are universally recognized here and be quite irreconcilable with current international thought ". The main objections are to the District Court (Amendment) Act which would considerably reduce the number of criminal trials by jury and deprive large numbers of defendants of legal aid even when they were charged with serious offences.

The Act gives the district courts power to try many cate gories of criminal cases sum. marily which up to now had only been triable in the Supreme Court by a jury, and also allows the district courts to impose

penalties of up to seven years'.

Many serious cases therefore could under the Act come before a relatively minor judge sitting on his own without a jury, ti addition, whereas legal aid was always granted for trials in the Supreme Court, the circum- stances in which it can be granted in the district courts are severely limited.

Other disadvantages of the dis- trict courts are that there is no official note taken of the pro- ceedings, so that the judge's notes are the only record; that trials there are on the whole lengthier than in the Supreme Court; and that the procedure is less favourable to the accused

The other two Acts are less controversial, but are still seen as inroads into the principles of English criminal law. The Criminal Procedure (Amend- ment) Act introduces a system of preventive detention and the Public Order (Amendment) Act widens the powers of the courts to deal with possession of offen- sive weapons.