617
4. As regards the second case cited, I did make the suggestion regarding the Shanghai Judge in my letter to Your Honour of 8th February last. I did not go into it in detail until I should hear from the Secretary of State as to whether the idea was possible since Your Honour had stated that you considered it to be out of the question for a Foreign Office Judge to come here unless there were reciprocity, which was impossible. At your desire I have cabled to the Secretary of State to inform him that you would wish to express an opinion regarding the working of the scheme before its details are decided.
5. I have replied at some length to the concrete instances brought forward by Your Honour in support of your view that "little consideration is paid to the opinion of the Chief Justice in matters affecting the administration of justice" but I fear that it is beyond my power to remove what appears to have become an idée fixe in you mind.
His Honour
THE CHIEF JUSTICE.
I have, &c.,
F. D. LUGARD,
Governor, &c.
CHAMBERS, SUPREME COURT,
HONGKONG, 28th October, 1908.
SIR,- much regret to find on perusing Your Excellency's speech on the second reading of the Appropriation Ordinance on Thursday 8th October that Your Excellency did not take the opportunity of correcting the impression left on the readers of some of the reports of Your Excellency's speech, that in your view appeals to the Full Court as at present constituted were a farce. I had hoped that for the reasons, and with the materials which I had supplied to Your Excellency in my letters on subject, some allusion would have been made to the subject.
2. Your Excellency's remarks, as published in the papers, are as I have already pointed out in my letter of 29th September calculated to undo the work which I have done in promoting confidence in the Full Court in spite of its admittedly unsatisfactory constitution. Very shortly the Full Court will have to deliver important judgments in a case on appeal from my decision at nisi prius, which has been argued before it at great length. It may be that I shall differ from the Puisne Judge; it may be that I shall maintain my former opinion; but as to both of these questions the matter is still under consideration. But should these things happen the suggestion engendered in the popular mind by the report of Your Excellency's speech, and especially in that of the disappointed litigant, will inevitably be that the appeal has been a farce. I should therefore be obliged if Your Excellency would lay the correspondence on the Table of Council. It is of the first necessity that the appeal to the Full Court should be considered by all, whether well or ill informed people, as a serious matter, and not as a farce.
3. I note what Your Excellency says on the subject in paragraph 2 of your letter of the 6th October: but I regret that I cannot agree with it. I do not think that the remarks actually made by Your Excellency are at all calculated to promote confidence in the Court, for they suggest criticisms of the decisions of the Chief Justice's judgments which would not otherwise occur to litigants or even ill-informed people. But the actual words used by Your Excellency are not before the public, as no one except members of Councils see the local Hansand.
His Excellency
Sir FREDERICK LUGARD, K.C.M.G.,
Governor of Hongkong.
I have, &c.,
F. T. PIGGOTT, Chief Justice.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.