CONFIDENTIAL
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(b) the power to set miscellaneous non-controversial statutory fees to the Financial Secretary; and
(c) the determination of routine appeals to a centralised Appeals Board.
4.
The Chinese should not have any difficulty with the first two proposals which seek to delegate power within the administration only. However, the proposal to transfer the hearing of routine appeals to a centralised administrative Appeals Board may arouse the suspicions of the Chinese, who could see it as a further ceding of the Executive's power. We will need to brief the Chinese on the Appeals Board proposal with care. Chinese paranoia about any sort of developments in the ExCo-LegCo relationship will mean they are likely to ask for a full list of "routine appeals" which would fall within the jurisdiction of the proposed centralised Appeals Board. Hong Kong have prepared a list which indeed looks innocuous enough. The Hong Kong
Government's intentions to vest in the Governor the power to appoint members of the board and to exclude Legislative Council members from it should help to allay Chinese suspicions.
5.
We
On his copy of Hong Kong telno 32, Lord Caithness remarked that he disliked centralised appeals boards. therefore probed Hong Kong's thinking on this and an alternative option of setting up different appeals boards under different names for the purposes of different ordinances. Hong Kong telno 143 explains why a single centralised board would be preferable. Operationally and administratively, it would be neater to have a single board rather than 20 to 30 separate small boards each meeting only
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