CONFIDENTIAL
Mr Ehrman,
JARD
287
fon belles
R
FROM:
DATE:
Paul Fifoot
hot 22/0
22 October 1985
Yes!
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL QUESTIONS
1.
The precedents with which I am familiar provide for membership, and the role of members, of a legislature and for witnesses before the legislature. I am not aware of a legislature (though there may well be one) which provides for a third category of participants in the work of the legislature (apart, of course, from the staff, including the police, acting under the directions of the presiding officer). Even in the United States, where members of the Administration are not members of Congress, it seems they appear before the Congress in order to give testimony.
2. I would have expected that, in the kind of situation which has developed in Hong Kong, where Secretaries have a policy responsibility in relation to various departments, they would be in a position to answer for those departments much as Ministers do under a more formal Ministerial system. The Minister cannot be expected to know the details of his department or departments and has to rely upon briefing from those who do. Is this kind of solution beyond the capacity of the Hong Kong system? If, for one reason or another, Hong Kong is not prepared to adopt such a system, I can well see the disadvantages of officials having to answer questions as witnesses. Parliamentary Questions frequently have a highly political content and the kind of provision in Part III of the Legislative Council (Powers and Privileges) Ordinance of 1985 provides much too stringent a regime for compelling answers. Officials called to answer such questions should not be put in the position where they may frequently have to invoke the protection of the President of the Legislative Council. Such considerations would argue in favour of a third category of participants in the legislature. Despite the absence of precedents, I do not think that there would be any legal or constitutional objection to introducing such a third category in order to enable non-members to give answers to Parliamentary Questions.
3.
However I think there may be practical difficulties of another kind in such a course, in that unofficial members may be critical if officials who are not members adopt a "Ministerial" approach to the way they answer questions. It is sometimes necessary to evade a question or supplementary or to answer it in an authoritative, even high handed, fashion. The tolerance accorded in such matters to official members may well not extend to officials who are not members, and the proposal may falter on its practical unacceptability.
ник ailr
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY
3 0 OCT 1935
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tution Taker. CONFIDENTIAL
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