A:
DR A HATCHER
Secretariat (Overseas) (Commitments)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
Main Building Whitehall London SW1A 2HB
Telephone 01-218 2084 (Direct Dialling)
01-218 90000 (Switchboard)
916
Miss J M Slater
Hong Kong Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office London SW1A 2AH
Your reference
Our reference D/Sec(0)(C)/6/7
Date
8 September 1988
Dear Judith
HONG KONG:
1.
CLAIMS AGAINST BRITISH FORCES
(374
Thank you for your letter of 17 May. I am sorry I have not been able to respond earlier. It seems that, contrary to my pre- decessor's letter of 19 December 1987, there is in fact nothing in the Crown Proceedings Ordinance which makes it impossible for the Crown in right of the UK to sue Hong Kong residents (and their insurers) in tort; the fact that the Ordinance may not the matter is, apparently therefore, irrelevant, and our squeamish- ness heretofore has apparently been driven by policy rather than law.
In the light of this advice, we have been taking action in Hong Kong, in consultation with the Treasury Solicitor's Agents, to pursue recovery claims on behalf of MOD through the Courts against local residents and/or their Insurance Companies.
2.
3•
Incidentally, I understand that discussions have already been taking place in Hong Kong about the proposal to amend the Crown Proceedings Ordinance: our Area Claims Officer met Mr David Little, Crown Counsel in the Attorney General's Office of the HKG, last December, and was told the HKG had been considering the implications of the Basic Law drafting work for the British Forces and Juris- dictional matters. Our main concern is that the Ordinance should be brought into line with the provisions of the UK's Crown Proceedings Act 1947, Section 10 of which was repealed in May 1987.
4.
Turning to your second point, concerning the desirability of enacting local legislation to amend other Crown Proceedings Ordi- nances, this is something which the MOD Legal Adviser has been corresponding with the FCO's Legal Advisers about for over a year, again in the context of the need to take appropriate local legis- lative action in the dependencies to mirror the repeal in this country of last year's repeal of Section 10. The present position is that after consultation with our Legal Adviser Ian Hendry wrote
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