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they had heard of the ruling.
(b) If the courts were to rule that periods spent in detention awaiting screening (currently 2 years on average) are unreasonably long, the Hong Kong Government could be faced with the prospect of having to invest substantially
more resources in the screening process in order to reduce the average period spent in detention awaiting screening.
(c) There is no legal basis in existing legislation for
transferring boat people from one camp to another. Once
such transfers are made, they are therefore subject to judicial review.
In practice, I therefore see little alternative but to
authorise the Hong Kong Government to amend their
legislation in order to ensure that detention under current
circumstances is fully legal.
Drawbacks
12.
However, Ministers should be aware that there are also
significant drawbacks to this course of action:
(a) In the view of our Legal Advisers, the proposed
amendments do not remedy the defects in Hong Kong's
Vietnamese boat people policy, which they consider could have put HMG in breach of ICCPR obligations since 1982, and to a slightly lesser extent since 1988. In several respects
the amendments make it slightly more likely that HMG could
be found to be in breach of the ICCPR, although in other
respects the amendments make some slight improvements on the
existing position.
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