CONFIDENTIAL
lawyers. A senior full-time judicial administrator will also
be appointed.
a) The judiciary will no longer be subject to civil service
regulations (governing the practical details of their terms of service) and will have their own judicial regulations.
Their pay and allowances will be provided for by Hong Kong
law.
B
7.
The
These proposals have been endorsed by ExCo and are now ready to be presented to the Chinese side of the Joint Liaison Group. latter were put on notice at JLG IV last Summer (during discussion of the new Hong Kong Civil Service Pension Scheme) that we would be presenting them with our plans to improve judicial pensions and terms of service in due course. Hong Kong have now prepared a draft paper for submission to the Chinese. The draft has been carefully worded to stress the importance of these proposals in terms of improving the local/expatriate balance rather than in terms of increasing the independence of the judiciary. Our object in doing so is to seek to avoid as far as possible a discussion with the Chinese focussed on the constitutional/Basic Law implication of what
is proposed. Deng Xiaoping has recently spoken publicly of his (general) reservations about the theory of a separation of powers; and with this and other constitutional concerns in mind the Chinese
side will feel obliged to scrutinise any such proposals very closely. Our plans are fully defensible in simple localisation terms; and we should therefore seek to focus our discussion on this
rationale as far as possible.
8.
If time allows and the Chinese side are agreeable, we might aim to have expert discussions before JLG VII, in an effort to pave the way for their formal agreement to our plans at the JLG. But it may well be that the Chinese will prefer to have a more general
discussion first at the JLG itself, as a prelude to expert talks soon afterwards. In any event, if Ministers agree, we shall aim to present our draft paper to the Chinese as soon as possible.
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