Attention Mr. Pater Stewart
DRAFT ARTICLE FOR HONG KONG STANDARD SUNDAY EDITION
The Director of Immigration's recent detention and removal of 119 Vietnamesa
refugees has shown disadvantages in his Department's legal powars and administrativa
practice.
The Immigration Ordinance gives wide powers to detain people. There are powers
of detention in at least 10 different Sections of the Ordinance, and the different sections
permit detention for differant periods of time and on different conditions. For example,
a person landing in Hong Kong may be detained for enquiries for 48 hours or in cartain
cusas for liva days undar Saction 25 of the Immigration Ordinance; under Section 32 a
person may be detained for 14 days pending removal hom Hong Kong. Other pavors of
detention are wider though none go so far as the Director himself Mr. W. E. Collard J.P.
suggested when he said on 6th Juna that the Vietnamese refugees will "stay locked up
until i dacide otherwise."
..
When the Immigration Department has detained someone it is difficult to establish
in a particular case whether he is lawfully detained or not. There are several reasons
for this. Firstly the Director of Inmigration is not obliged openly to state under which pit.
particular section of the Immigration Ordinance he is exercising his power of detentiong
thus the time limit for the detention is not known. Neither is he required to show openly
that the necessary authority from the Governor or the Colonial Secretary or otliar official, ·
required in a particular case, has been obtained. Further since a person can be detained
although he is not charged with a criminal offence, he might not be brought balora a
Court to decide the legality of his detention. This perliups was the case with tha
Vietnamese refugees, since the authorities could not conclusively show that they were
attempting to land in Hong Kong, as opposed to remaining in their boat until they were
takon olsewhere.
The appeal provisions of the Ordinance are also too weak. Undar Section 53(1)
1.
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