TNAG-0398-FCO40-444-Appointments-to-supreme-and-district-courts-from-the-Bar-in--1973 — Page 67

Referen........................

Mr Stuart ( HK & I OD)

MAGISTRATES IN HONG KONG

1.

I have, since I wrote my minute on 20 March, discussed magistrates with Mr Oliver, the Registrar of the High Court in Hong Kong and Mr Hobley, Solicitor-General designate of Hong Kong (who is just completing a year's secondment in Bermuda). I have also received a personal letter from Mr Roberts, the Attorney- General, in which he mentioned the question of magistrates

2.

Mr Roberts tells me that his concern was not of the general calibre of expatriate magistrates "which seems to me to be quite satisfactory" but of the time it took for an expatriate to get the feel of Hong Kong and its problems. The criticism in the Chinese press and by prominent Chinese citizens was that the judiciary was not sufficiently attuned to local attitudes. "This is perhaps best illustrated by the heavy criticism of the level of sentences which the courts have imposed during the past 2 or 3 years".

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Mr Roberts' opinion appeared to be shared by the two officers to whom I spoke. Mr Oliver said that, in his view, the standard of magistrates was much better than when he first arrived in 1954 (which judging from what he told me, indicated that Hong Kong standards were then lower than East African standards) and were as high as he had ever known them. Mr Hobley also thought the calibre of magistrates taken as a group was reasonable. Both gave me the impression that there was a fair span of individual's capacity but they themselves volunteered that this is what one would expect in an establishment of nearly 50. Mr Oliver spoke highly of some of the people in the senior magistrate grade and both he and Mr Hobley implicitly made the same point as Mr Roberts that it takes time for magistrates to get the Hong Kong slant on things and hence the better magistrates were those who had been there longer.

4. With regard to the criticism of sentencing, this is, of course, a matter where the standard is set for magistrates by the High Court; there may be some changes in this respect with a change of Chief Justice.

5. To sum all this up, it may be that I was a little harsh on the candidates whom I have interviewed for Hong Kong over the last 2 years. The criticism is of slowness of acclimatisation, not calibre.

pf.

PRN Fifoot

Legal Counsellor W 44/3 MB 1177

17 April 1973

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