TNAG-1589-FCO40-21741-Future-of-the-judiciary-in-Hong-Kong.-Part-1-of-2-1987 — Page 104

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to include the Judiciary in that.

Latterly, I saw the Acting

Governor, Sir David Allers-Jones, and got a similar impression from

him.

3. I invite your attention to Chapters I (particularly paras 11 and 12, II (paras 14-19) and IX (para 3, Recommendations 1-7) of my

Report. Even under the present regime these are matters which tend

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against judicial independence. First, there is a system of promotion

up the judicial ladder; secondly, judicial officers are not always

seen to be separate from other public servants (e.g. in a single

published list in the Annual Estimates magistrates come below

way more

interpreters); thirdly, the legal civil service is a fully

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acknowledged and jealously guarded field of recruitment for the

J.D. 66 bench; and fourthly, the current constitutional position is derived

not from local laws but by shadowing the British constitution as far

as that can be done without a Lord Chancellor or anyone like him.

4.

The independence of the Judiciary is already not as clear or

as well-protected as may be thought in the British Government. The

Lord Chancellor may wish to have that in mind in his discussions.

It

is therefore crucially important to think how to give the Judiciary

the best possible start in the SAR which will have its high degree of

autonomy but be under the sovereignty of China. I am certain that the

best hope lies in ensuring that the Judiciary has its own firm

administrative base. The structure I have proposed provides for

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judicial officers - for courts and tribunals and an administrator

and for them all to come together in an advisory group under the Chief