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Stuart
WORD
12.3
mich fand to see
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Mr Wilford
12/3
Mr Locan
مسارک
Mr Fifost also S
to see
This is a w
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unsatisfactory situation.
ni fiturk should report to
are immediaty after his
C.J.
with the wo
A-R.
MAGISTRATES AND JUDGES IN HONG KONG
1.
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imme to
A.R.R.
12.3
I minuted on 14 December about the appointment of
magistrates. Mr Royle then asked how we could improve the
calibre of the magistrates and said he would like to write
to Mr Peter Rees MP. I had a submission on the subject of
magistrates in draft, but Mr Rees has now written to Mr Royle
about appointments from the Hong Kong Bar to the Bench, in
much the same terms as he wrote to the Lord Chancellor on
19 October.
MAGISTRATES
2.
We have discussed the recruitment procedures and the
calibre of the candidates with Mr Fifoot, the Legal Counsellor
who usually sits on the Crown Agents Recruitment Board for
magistrates for Hong Kong. He considers that the quality of
those recruited is extremely varied, and does not consider
that the standard of recruitment is as high as was the case
when the Colonial Legal Service was the size it was after the
last war. The field is not as large as it used to be. It
tends to include people such as assistant solicitors in firms,
youngish men in local government and elsewhere who want to see
the world, and older people who think their prospects in their
present job are not good. On one or two occasions Hong Kong
have taken on people whom Mr Fifoot would not have recommended
but this is probably because of the need to fill the vacancy
and the difficulty of finding anyone better.
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13.
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