TNAG-2329-FCO40-3373-Hong-Kong-contacts-with-academics-and-writers-1991 — Page 137

directly from the way in which the RSRB may have dealt with a particular case. I should add that I was interested to read that teams of, Hong Kong officials are going to make regular trips to

14 Vietnam. The visitors may be unlikely to be told how such pressures may operate. In this context, I must stress again that I have no direct experience yet myself of the system or of life in Vietnam; and this paragraph is based on observations elsewhere in the world, and the single case I mentioned earlier.

6.6.7.

In relation to attitude

(a)

I have heard it said that the Immigration Service and the RSRB have at times exhibited an attitude which is less than fair to the merits of a claim. I have heard it said as well that immigration officers' attitudes have improved considerably in recent times. I believe that attitude could be a problem, or perhaps that it could have been a problem. I do not know which is more accurate, or indeed if either of them are. I would like to know more: the allegation is relevant given my aims as stated in paragraph 6.4 above.

(b) I suspect the problem can arise in two ways at least. First, out

of exasperation; and in that regard I have some sympathy with overworked officials. Secondly, it might arise out of a working assumption that most asylum-seekers are not refugees. I know that this assumption operates at the policy level, for the government's Refugee Co-ordinator was quoted on his return from Vietnam as saying as much:-

"I am more certain than I was before I left that our screening system is as far as possible identifying the relatively small number who are genuine refugees and is correctly screening out a large number who aren't refugees and who quite frankly

never would be."

The South China Morning Post added that:-

"After meeting two groups of returnees during his visits to

Hanoi and the northern province of Quang Ning he felt it would have been a tragedy if they had been screened in and

resettled in the West."

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(c) I use the word 'assumption" in this context, for if the above

belief played any role in the process of individual

case-determination, that is precisely what it would be. For it to affect the attitude brought to bear in individual cases would be to do otherwise than judge individual cases on their merits. have heard a similar assumption expounded.

I