TNAG-1793-FCO40-2553-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-refugees-repatriation--including-Opera-1988 — Page 290

CONFIDENTIAL

$.

The answers to your particular questions are as follows:-

a) one cannot exclude the possibility that

a change of heart may be justified in particular circumstances, but there is nothing in your minute which suggests that that is the case here so as to have an affect on the individual's status;

b)

c)

yes;

not necessarily; the problem is not one of law, but of the facts of the individual cases and the extent to which ministers would be prepared to defend distinctions and act differently in respect of different categories. There is nothing discreditable about distinguishing between an "economic" refugee and a layabout, and intending to return the latter. I am in no position to judge the merits of the case of the two boatmen who have changed their minds after going to Hong Kong.

of

Paul Fifoot

Legal Advisers K 199

2 June 1988

CONFIDENTIAL

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