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CONFIDENTIAL
At the negotiations
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Paragraph (1) replace "publicly available documents" as above
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Paragraph (2) insert "at its discretion after "may" in line 1.
7.
Article XIV
Differs from language of US and Caymans MLATS.
Miss Brooks concerned as to how HKSAR could fulfil its obligations here as it will have no consular or diplomatic officers. She thought the requirement on us might be burdensome, but Mr Sonnenberg said the first sentence is standard, and the second part is not uncommon, cf. letters of request.
In preparation
Ms Wyver
Canadian
to ask NTCD about this Article would we be prepared to do all this certification using diplomatic or consular mechanisms if HK requested us to do so?
8. Article XV
Paragraph (1) Mr Sonnenberg asked if "a person in custody" included those on remand. Mrs Evans said we could include remand prisoners under the terms of the 1990 Act. She found the terms of line 3 rather wide, here again she was concerned about disguised extradition. Mr Sonnenberg and Mr Mash would prefer the terms of this provision to be left unchanged - it is close to the language of the US and Caymans MLATS. Miss Brooks noted that no-one could be transferred without their consent.
Paragraph (2) Miss Brooks wondered if this contained enough safeguards. Mr Sonnenberg was unhappy with it - we would not transfer a person if their sentence might expire outside our jurisdiction, or vice versa. Mrs Evans said it would pose immigration problems if a HK person's sentence expired in the UK before the end of the trial. Miss Brooks suggested we limit (1) to those whose sentence is unlikely to expire during the trial. She referred to Section 6 of the 1990 Act. Mr Sonnenberg said the European Convention allows us to refuse to transfer a person if to do so would be likely to lead to their detention being prolonged. But in reality the court would defer proceedings until the person was at liberty to come and give evidence voluntarily. Mrs Evans pointed out that they would then be prevented from doing so by the immigration laws! She said lines 4 and 5 are inconsistent with the 1990 Act,
CONFIDENTIAL
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