C
AB
CONFIDENTIAL
да никотору
TRY
- WAUG 1985 3117
Mr Galsworthy
Galsworthy,
ok!
FROM: DATE:
HKD
M. Elnagh bety du. Pay. Advice pre
•
This seems
to make sense.
Mh. 1/2
D W PARTRIDGE, NTD
16 JULY 1985
305
Copies to: Mr Hill, Legal Advisers
Mr Grainger, Legal Advisers
HONG KONG: 'MIXED' AND 'SEPARATE' BDTCs
1.
I have been following, with frankly increasing incredulity, the correspondence with the Home Office and our own internal minuting on who should be excepted from loss of BDTC status after the transfer of Hong Kong. I am concerned that Miss Veale's arguments appear to be losing the day.
2.
I cannot see that there should really be a problem. Both justice and commonsense require that if a person is a BDTC both by virtue of a connection with Hong Kong and also by virtue of a connection with another Dependent Territory (ie his Hong Kong connection is not an essential factor), then he should be excepted from loss because, even though the connection with Hong Kong no longer gives him this status, he still has it by virtue of the other connection. Surely this cannot worry the Chinese, because it can be of no concern to them if a person is a BDTC by virtue of a lose BOTC state connection with any Dependent Territory other than Hong Kong.
246
Such persons
Que
seperates & with not
Home office would surely
agree fr
those
Lor
after 1.1.83. Who is right
pre
on
1.1.83
im Partridge's argument looks
strong
3. Home Office reasoning seems to me to be particularly aberrant. It is nonsense for Mr Emery to say, as he does in the third paragraph of his letter of 2 July to Mr Powell, that it is not possible for anyone born before 1 January 1983 to have a truly 'mixed' link with Hong Kong. Anyone born before that date in Hong Kong to parents who were CUKCS with a Right of Abode in the United Kingdom, is now both a British citizen by virtue of parentage and a BDTC by virtue of birth in Hong Kong. It cannot be right to say that if the parents instead of being CUKCS with the Right of Abode had been CUKCS by virtue of birth in, say, the British Virgin Islands then in this case the parentage is of no account and the BDTC status derives solely from birth in Hong Kong. Miss Veale makes this point in her minute of 15 July to Mr Powell. But a similar situation must apply in regard to persons born in Hong Kong after 1.1.83 and before 30 June 1997.
To use the analogy that I have just cited, it will surely be wrong if children born to parents who are BDTCs by virtue of birth in the British Virgin Islands will cease to be BDTCs if born in Hong Kong: but will retain that status if they are born anywhere (including China) other than in Hong Kong. It will also be ridiculous if such a child born in Hong Kong on 30 June 1997 ceases to be BDTC the following day whereas if the birth had been delayed until 1 July 1997, that child would be a BDTC.
CONFIDENTIAL
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