Mr
Aft
HONG KONG:
1.
CONFIDENTIAL
Jone
19
Enter submit
Af29/12
see (21 29/12
See HKK 243/3
(1983)
5. HKK 243/3
E
NO
7310/1
GB (//
CLOSED CAMPS FOR VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
Thank you for showing me the letter from the Attorney General of Hong Kong of 20 December.— 17
2.
I do not think that his arguments can be sustained, in so far as they deal with the reservations which we made when ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I cannot recommend that we should seek to rely on them.
3.
+917243|1
to 13
I remain of the opinion that the reservation, quoted
212 in his letter and in paragraph 4 of my minute of 24 September, can be regarded as covering no more than a short period of (copy allencies detention for so long only as may reasonably be needed for a decision to be taken as to whether to admit or deport the person concerned. That sort of deprivation of liberty is no doubt what occurs during the immigration procedures at Heathrow but it is in no way comparable to long term detention of Vietnamese refugees in prison camps.
4.
Moreover even the right under this reservation to detain a person for a very short period disappears once a decision is taken to admit him. Thereafter the immigrant must be accor- ded full human rights under the Covenant unless some other reservation can be relied on. There is one other such reser- vation in respect of Hong Kong which reads:-
"The Government of the United Kingdom reserve the right not to apply Article 13 in Hong Kong in so far as it confers a right of review of a decision to deport an alien and a right to be represented for this purpose before the competent authority."
This is the only permissible departure from the Covenant, once an immigrant has been admitted to Hong Kong. This reservation relates only to Article 13 and it does not allow any derogation from Article 9 (arbitrary detention etc.) or any other provision in the Covenant.
CONFIDENTIAL
/I must
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.