CONFIDENTIAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
Enke
Telephone 01-
H Steel Esq. CMG OBE
Law Officers Dept
Attorney General's Chambers
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand WC 2
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Your reference
Our reference
Date
January 1983
ལས ཀ*
HKK34313
Dear Henry, HONG KONG:
1.
NJ
门
25조
Chall
See (1)
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES AND HUMAN RIGHTS -
The purpose of this letter is not to seek the advice of the Law Officers, but to inform them of a policy decision which our Minister of State has thought it right, on balance, to recommend to the Secretary of State, despite the legal difficulties involved. Because the legality of this policy may be challenged in Parliament or elsewhere, the Law Officers would no doubt wish to be aware of it. Its compatibility with our relevant obligations in the field of human rights has already been the subject of Parliamentary questions, and Justice has expressed concern.
2.
The background is that large numbers of Vietnamese refugees have gone to Hong Kong, causing serious practical difficulties for the Hong Kong Government. As a deterrent to others the Hong Kong Government decided to create "closed
For that camps" in which to house some of the refugees. purpose it enacted the Closed Camps Immigration (Amendment) Ordinance 1982. No copy of this ordinance is available in the FCO but it is believed to have the effect described in the attached Memorandum.
3. Persons put into such camps are confined to them and are deprived of their liberty for indefinite periods. They are
At present ordered to be detained there by executive decision. they are subject to prison rules which infringe a number of human rights, but the Hong Kong Government has agreed to amend those rules. The remaining difficulty arises because detainees' only recourse to the courts is by habeas corpus. once it is established during such proceedings that a person has been detained by order of the appropriate executive authority the courts have no power to look into the merits of his or her detention.
However,
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