TNAG-0499-FCO40-564-Administration-of-justice-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 26

Reference.....HKK 14/6

58

the

Digras

Mr Dinwiddy (HKIOD)

14/10

HONG KONG : STYLE OF DISTRICT JUDGES

1.

I undertook to make some enquiries to see how Hong Kong District Judges compared with judges in England.

2.

I had a word with Mr Penlington of the Attorney General's Department in Hong Kong, who confirmed that Hong Kong District Judges exercise jurisdiction as follows:

3.

(a) Criminal

they may try almost any criminal case except certain serious crimes such as murder and rape. They may award sentences of imprisonment of up to seven years and impose any fine prescribed by law in relation to the crime in question.

(b) Civil

they may exercise civil jurisdiction in any case where the subject-matter of the action does not exceed HK$20,000, and also deal with undefended divorce cases.

I then discussed the matter with Sir Bryan Roberts of the Lord Chancellor's Department. He equates Hong Kong judges with Circuit Judges in England, who are styled "His Hon, Judge So-and-so".

4. As Sir Bryan sees the matter, it would not be unreasonable, by analogy with this country, to style Hong Kong District Judges "His Honour Judge So-and-so" also.

5. Had a proposal to this effect reached us from the Governor Sir Bryan would have expected us to consult the Lord Chancellor's Office and his guess is that the Lord Chancellor's Office would not have seen objection to it.

6.

The difficulty is of course that the Governor does not support the idea of giving his District Judges a special style, for reasons which Sir Bryan (as a former colonial Attorney-General) can appreciate. It is natural for the administration, in which only the Governor and members of Executive Council have a special style, to dislike the idea of giving one to District Judges when more senior administrative officers have none.

7. There is on one of the files which you now have a table prepared a few years ago showing how other colonies styled their judges and magistrates and this does not contain any clear precedent which we could cite in favour of the Hong Kong District Judges. My impression is that there is no equivalent of Hong Kong District Judges in any of the remaining dependent territories.

8. A style for Hong Kong District Judges would I imagine be well received by the local legal profession and would not I suppose be likely to cause any consternation among the Hong Kong community as a whole. (I have been told that traditional Chinese society accords a high respect and standing to a judge or magistrate.)

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