TNAG-2286-FCO40-3289-Extension-of-Official-Secrets-Act-1989-to-Hong-Kong-1991 — Page 139

HKB 440/1

TKCEIVED IN |

15 MARIS

4 March 1991

I Wotherspoon Esq

Security Branch

Government Secretariat

Lower Albert Road

HONG KONG

Dear lan,

OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT

CONFIDENTIAL

Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

London SW1 2AH

1. Thank you for your letter of 11 February to Mike Stone enclosing a copy of a draft Executive Council memorandum on the Official Secrets Act 1989 and seeking our comments.

2. We agree that it would be appropriate to make provisions now to extend the 1989 Official Secrets Act to Hong Kong by Order-in-Council. We presume that you will also wish the amendments to Section 2 of the 1911 Act, which are contained in Schedule 1 to the Official Secrets Act 1920 and also Section 9(1) of the 1920 Act to be replaced as well. At present these still apply to Hong Kong (Section 16 (5) of the 1989 Act). As regards the memorandum itself, we have the following comments:-

a) Paragraph 13. We doubt the wisdom of, or need for such extensive reference to the ICCPR. Compatibility with the ICCPR is only a secondary reason for replacing Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. It would be unfortunate if the Chinese were to get the impression that we were taking this measure primarily in the context of the review of laws for Bill of Rights purposes. Further, if the Bill of Rights can be considered to "repeal or trim the effect of Section 2 of the Official Secret Act 1911, to the extent of any inconsistencies between the two", this weakens the case for the course of action you are proposing.

We therefore suggest that paragraph 13 might be deleted and paragraph 12 be kept to the minimum.

BATAJZ CVL

CONFIDENTIAL

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