TNAG-0700-FCO40-852-Appointment-of-District-and-High-Court-Judges-in-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 25

CODE 18 - 77

avoiding

162

Minute overlegt.

Mr Freeland

Mr McLaren

1.

Jet.

-2015

НКА 373 /393 /3

VNO. 51

10.

RALLISLU

DES.

INDEX

2 2 NOV 1978

RESISTRY

ction Takes

33

N.

PL

This idea of Sir Denys Roberts seems open to various pros and cons as follows:

(i) Pros:

a. The secondment of English judges (two at a time) ought

to result in an accretion of wider learning and experience and their presence might be instructive to those of the other judges who were prepared to learn from their example;

b. This expedient would certainly be a valuable recourse if

difficulties arose in filling vacancies from local sources or from elsewhere;

c. I see no reason why it should be resented by the local

population on the contrary I should expect the innovation to be welcomed.

(ii) Cons:

K

a. The expedient might give rise to the idea that there

were first- and second-class judges, and thus detract from the prestige of judges not borrowed from the English High Court;

b. It might upset the local bar but only if it were seen as

a means of appointments from that source providing suitable local barristers were appointed to the Supreme Court from time to time, I believe the local bar (and local solicitors) would welcome the change my only fear is that local sentiment might feel that better justice would be obtained from the first-class judges than from the second-class judges;

As for the need for this expedient, so far it has not been difficult to find local candidates for existing vacancies in the Supreme Court and outside appointments have been rare, while only one appointment has been made from the local bar, so one cannot say at the moment that there is a need for English High Court judges to keep the Supreme Court up to strength when there are both local and outside candidates available to fill the vacancies currently in prospect;

d. It is true however that the quality of available local

candidates may show a decline (some of the recent appointments from the District Court smacked of scraping the barrel and there are few local barristers fit for appointment) while the already small number of colonial service candidates is likely to diminish and we should certainly be prepared to consider an English source to keep the Supreme Court up to strength when the need arises;

/e. Even