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judiciary can be further reinforced before 1997.
5.
Over the past year, Hong Kong have examined closely possible means of improving the terms of service of the judiciary
sufficiently to attract local lawyers of the right calibre to serve as judges. Hong Kong's review has been conducted in close contact
with HKD officials and FCO legal advisers and the latter have kept
the Lord Chancellor's Department (LCD) generally abreast of progress. Hong Kong have tried in their review to have regard to the need to avoid so improving judges' terms of service as to provoke dissatisfaction within the Hong Kong Civil Service as a whole: they have also taken account of recommendations made by Mr Peter Robinson (formerly a Deputy Secretary in the LCD) early this year in a report commissioned by the Hong Kong Chief Justice to identify means of improving the judiciary's structure,
administration and efficiency.
6.
In brief, the proposals that Hong Kong have formulated are
as follows:
a) Judicial terms of employment will be more clearly divorced from those of the civil service. This may help to attract local lawyers who would not wish to join the civil service as such; it will also enable judicial terms of service to be adjusted to meet judicial requirements without having direct regard to wider civil service norms (eg pay comparability).
b) Later retirement ages and higher pension earning rates will
be provided for, to enable those joining the judiciary in
middle age to enjoy a reasonable career and to secure respectable retirement benefits.
c) Improvements will be made to the system of judicial
administration. Judicial appointments and promotions, which
are made by the Governor acting with the advice of the Hong Kong Judicial Service Commission (JSC), will henceforth be processed within the judiciary itself rather than within the existing civil service machinery. The JSC will be
strengthened by the inclusion of more judges and local
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