be applied. The Public Services Commission and the Secretary of State should be given a full explanation for the proposed action. Provided that the full facts are made available to the Governor, the Public Services Commission and, in cases where it is necessary, the Secretary of State, there should be no risk of any injustice. There is always the residual safeguard provided by petition to the Governor or the Secretary of State to review a case by the exercise of the prerogative power.
208. I do not think that it would be desirable to assign reasons for compulsory retirement under an amended section 8(2) of the Pensions Ordinance. At present the section does not require such disclosure. Furthermore, compulsory retirement may be resorted to for a number of reasons none of which an officer can be expected to accept as valid in his own case. It might well be against the public interest to disclose that com- pulsory retirement was the only sanction available in cases where a civil servant had been acquitted of a criminal offence on a technicality or where there was evidence of corrupt misconduct which was inadmissible in a criminal court. Of course, the officer would have to be given reasonable notice, and he would have pension and/or other accrued benefits; but this is surely a small price to pay in the public interest for an efficient and honest public service. The alternative is the continuation of a situation which the public is quite unable to understand and which causes tremendous damage to public confidence in the administration and the morale of the majority of honest officers in it.
Suggested amendment to the Fugitive Offenders Act 1967
209. I do not think that this falls within my terms of reference; but the inability of the Hong Kong Govern- ment to obtain an order for the return to Hong Kong of Mr. P. F. GODBER has aroused so much public anger that it may not be out of place for me to say a word or two on the subject, even if I do not add anything to what has already been said by others.
210. I think it should be made clear to the public of Hong Kong that Her Majesty would be acting un- constitutionally if She made an order-in-council for the return of Mr. GODBER to Hong Kong, thereby by-passing the provisions of a United Kingdom statute to which She had previously assented. If GODBER is to be returned to Hong Kong, it must be by lawful means.
211. Prior to 1967, the law relating to the apprehension and surrender of fugitive offenders from one part of Her Majesty's dominions to another was contained in the Fugitive Offenders Act 1881. It applied to
. . . every offence . . . which is . . . punishable in the part of Her Majesty's dominions in which it was committed . . . by imprisonment . . . for . . . 12 months or more . . .";
and it did not matter at all that there might be no offence in England equivalent to, say, the offence in Hong Kong in respect of which the return of the fugitive was sought. Section 9 of the 1881 Act provided that the Act would apply
to an offence notwithstanding that by the law of the part of Her Majesty's dominions in . . . which the fugitive is . . . it is not an offence . . .".
212. However, as certain former colonies began to govern themselves, Britain, on occasion, was faced with situations comparable to those envisaged at the time of the passing of the Extradition Act 1870 (i.e. the Act which governs extradition as between Britain and foreign countries). Sometimes the request was that a fugitive be returned for trial on, say, a theft charge; but the real reason for seeking his return might be to put him on trial for some political offence.
213. Therefore, a new Fugitive Offenders Act was passed in 1967 and the old 1881 Act was repealed. The new Act introduced a number of provisions comparable to those in the Extradition Acts. A distinction was drawn between a "designated Commonwealth country" and a "United Kingdom dependency". Hong Kong is a United Kingdom dependency. Provision was made for the return of a fugitive for trial for what is termed a relevant offence; and a relevant offence is defined in section 3(1) of the Act as follows:-
“3(1) . . . an offence of which a person is accused . . . in a designated Commonwealth country or United
Kingdom dependency is a relevant offence if-
(a) in the case of an offence against the law of a designated Commonwealth country, it is an offence which... falls within any of the descriptions set out in schedule I ... and is pun- ishable... with imprisonment for . . . 12 months or any greater punishment;
(b) in the case of an offence against the law of a United Kingdom dependency, it is punishable
under that law... with imprisonment for 12 months or any greater punishment; and
(c) in any case, the act or omission constituting the offence, or the equivalent act or omission, would constitute an offence against the law of the United Kingdom if it took place within the United Kingdom...".
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