TNAG-0669-FCO40-818-Policy-on-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 38

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VOL 7, NO 2 period is acted upon, it would clearly be desirable to establish a right of appeal against a determination by the Authority that a tenant be denied a yearly tenancy. This would be consistent with the rationale underlying all the heads of jurisdiction of the proposed appeals tribunal that a right of appeal should exist in all cases where tenant could be seriously financially disadvantaged, directly or indirectly be deprived of public housing accommodation, or have his security of tenure weakened by an unchallengeable administrative decision of the Authority.

HOUSING AUTHORITY'S DISCRETION

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IV CONCLUSION

It should not be inferred from this article that the Housing Authority has exercised its wide discretionary powers in bad faith. In fact, the reverse appears to be true; in his discussions with various officers of the Authority, the writer has been impressed with the personal concern shown towards the housing problems of their tenants. However, recognition of this fact does not undermine the need for the curtailment of the present discretionary powers. A number of reasons for reform can be cited.

First, it is submitted that it is undesirable for public housing tenants to have to rely for their legal protection on the benign goodwill of the Authority. The attitude of the Authority to its existing form of tenancy agreement is to recognise that many of the clauses are onerous, but to argue that no change is necessary as the onerous clauses are seldom, if ever, enforced. However, this argument would seem to strengthen rather than to weaken the case for reform: if the onerous clauses are never enforced, it seems pointless that they should remain as a potential threat to tenants. In addition, the existence of onerous clauses enables Authority employees to intimidate tenants by threatening them with eviction, as one can speculate that most tenants will be generally unaware of the fact that the right of eviction is seldom exercised. While the Authority is able to control the number of actual evictions, it has no means of controlling this form of intimidation. The social consequences produced by threats of eviction should not be under-estimated. As one commentator has written:

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'The threat of termination is a dangerous weapon. carelessly, it can create a hostile, bitter atmosphere in a

"It was admitted to the writer by Mrs J Au, Senior Housing Manager (Applications), that threats of eviction based on breaches of various clauses of the tenancy are not unusual.