TNAG-0400-FCO40-446-Review-of-the-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 92

CONFIDENTIAL

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for recommending a reprieve.

(66) (a)

201211

Flas

&

A Member of Parliament, Mr James Lamond, has written to the

Secretary of State suggesting the possibility of an appeal to the

Privy Council. The possibility of such an appeal does exist, or

did exist. The 2 barriers to this mentioned by Mr Lamond, that

the appeal would have been out of time and the prisoner would

have had no money to pay for it, would not necessarily be an

absolute barrier. It is possible to ask the Privy Council for

leave to appeal out of time and in forma pauperis. But in his

petition to The Queen (para 16) Tsoi Kwok-cheong specifically

denied an intention to appeal to the Privy Council. His Legal

Advisers will have been aware of the possibility. Presumably

they advised him not to proceed by this method since they realised,

as is indeed the case, that it would be most difficult to find

legal grounds on which to base a successful appeal.

ARGUMENT

5. The Governor has dealt fully and fairly with all questions

put to him. Ministers have decided that there is no reason to

intervene on grounds of general policy. The Legal Advisers do

not consider that there is any evidence of a miscarriage of

justice. I do not think that we can give any weight to

considerations (a), (b) and (d) above. At best they would

provide a pretext for intervention or delay if we had decided

that this was desirable on policy grounds. The third suggestion,

of a psychiatric report, does, however, have rather more legal

and constitutional weight. But I think we must accept that a

/psychiatric

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CONFIDENTIAL