TNAG-1827-FCO40-2595-Mutual-legal-assistance-between-Hong-Kong-and-the-UK-and-USA-1988 — Page 16

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Reference.........

au/9/9 upper minute) to the White, Hed.

CC

with

my

minute (and under.

Mr Wood, Hong Kong Department, WH 304

HONG KONG: MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE

Then po

4

410

1.

40

Please refer to your minute of 6 September. You are right to assume that Hong Kong and the UK could not conclude a treaty, as such, between themselves. However, there is a number of possibilities that will achieve what is needed as described by you in the drugs field.

2. My suggestion

is that the negotiators should concentrate on identifying arrangements (or a "scheme") that could be enforced in the UK under our own Drug Trafficking Offenses Act 1986 and which could then be covered by legislation in Hong Kong to enable confiscation orders to be enforced there. These arrangements, would amount rather like the fugitive offender or extradition arrangements, to a scheme between two jurisdictions. They could be recorded in a relatively informal document like a memorandum of understanding or even an exchange of letters. The scheme could, of course, include those matters which are contained in the model treaty attached to your minute of 6 September. It will be a reasonably simple matter to turn the relevant parts of the model into a less formal document.

HKO 371/1

Lluais

8 September 1988

- 8 SEP 1988

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D M Edwards

Legal Counsellor