TNAG-0401-FCO40-447-Review-of-the-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 75

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THE ECONOMIST MAY 19, 1973

Britain and Australia The war of the Queen's ear

FROM OUR CANBERRA CORRESPONDENT

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In the past, arguments about the Australian constitution have been not so much between the federal and state governments (although there was furious one when the courts decided that the federal government could claim a monopoly of taxation) as about whether the federal government could do things which many citizens did not want anyone to do. Now Mr Gough Whitlam's new Labor govern- ment is trying to strip the states of constitutional rights which their gov- ernments regard as basic-yet most of these rights are not even mentioned. in the constitution itself.

The paradox arises from the fact

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that when Australia's constitution was drafted in the 1890s the states were left with whatever functions and powers they already exercised unless these were specifically transferred to the federal government or in some way curtailed by the new document. At that stage they were separate British colonies, each with its own governor appointed by the Queen, its agent-general in London, its access to the judicial committee of the Privy Council and its own right to recommend imperial honours. These were left untouched 30 years later, when the Statute of Westminster, that much quoted but little read document, was being drawn up. The states per- suaded the British government preserve their rights against requests from the Australian federal govern- ment to curtail them.

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It is essentially the rights preserved in the Statute of Westminster-which is not part of the Australian constitu- tion but has constitutional force in Australia-that Mr Whitlam is now trying to reduce. He and his ministers

think it time that the states lost their

direct access to London and took their

place in an exclusively Australian

constitutional context. From the states' standpoint it is important to retain what they call their sovereignty, symbolised by independent access to British the Queen through her ministers, who for their part would rather be shot of the whole thing.

For Britam, to do wht the federal

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INTERNATional repORT

Queensland's leader wants his rights

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the Commonwealth of nations in the, past quarter of a century. The problem would be solved for Britain if Mr Whitlam were to win an Australian

which

the referendum

extended constitution in ways which nullified the statute. But the issues are so com- plex and yet so trivial, and would excite such indignation, especially in the smaller states, that the referendum might well be lost.

All six states are asking the Privy' Council for an advisory opinion about the rights of federal and state govern- ments to offshore waters and the sea- bed. This relates to jurisdiction over oil leases, but has wider implications. The Australian high court does not give advisory opinions. The states can claim that the Privy Council, which does, can solve the problem. The federal government disagrees but may be obliged to agree to a British court's.

deciding an Australian issue unless an version. of the Privy Australian Council can be hastily rigged up to do so. Even then the body would need to be acceptable to the states before they would cease to petition London.

Britain

Britain and Hongkong

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The issue has become basically racial. Most of the colony's white liberals are resisting a return to the gallows and insisting that Hongkong dutifully and constitutionally adopt Britain's abolition of capital punishment. But Chinese intellectuals and government officials, together with communist party leaders, are demanding the revival, of the traditional Chinese death-for-a-death. The governor, Sir Murray Maclehose, broke the pattern when he refused a reprieve for a typically callous Triad (Tong, or secret society) murderer, who then appealed to the Queen. Despite the protests of the Hongkong bar association, the colony's chief justice, Sir Ivor Rigby, distinguished for his personal leniency on appeal, sup- 'ported the governor's position.

'Leaders of the Chinese community are now striking back against the local

the British liberals and are organising a million-signature million-signature petition for mandatory revival of harging for murder. The colony's government is also introducing stiffer sentences for habitual criminals and confessed Triad members. The Queen's intervention is likely to produce an angry and embar- rassing Chinese reaction.

Sir Murray Maclehose is confronted with another momentous ruling. A Chinese woman has been sentenced to hang, together with four gangsters, for beating a man to death. She is the wealthiest madam in Hongkong's brothel business. If she is executed she will be the first woman to be hanged in the colony in 30 years.

Sikkim

India wins

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The campaign for more power for the people of Sikkim has ended by giving more power to the government of India. Last week, a month after riots erupted in India's tiny Himalayan pro- tectorate, an agreement was signed in the capital, Gangtok, setting up a new government structure. The main loser

The Queen's hand from the new deal is the Chogyal,

FROM OUR HONGKONG CORRESPONDENT

The Queen's reprieve this week for a convicted Chinese murderer in Hong- kong has already stiffened the growing popular cernand by the Chinese coun munity in the colony for restoration of the rope and the lash, The Queen's intervention has unfortunately coin- cided with the launching of a to eth anti-crime campaign hates homini armed robbery But Tung Alerro i erupt in the 'colony's

WAST

one-man

Sikkim's spiritual and temporal ruler who has been virtually a government since 1963, and will now be reduced to a fi irehead.

The leaders of the protest movement wanted to clip the Chogyal's wings. But they have not extracted nuch benefit for themselve. They have · ceeded in cominating the ở Bain Dias in favour of S'kitt's painolly eng. munity consisting of " pehas who the origual inhouit at dom a The Shuv

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