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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

Now, Mr. Chairman, in my speech I gave full marks to the Council, and in particular to the Urban Amenities Select Committee, for the tremendous work which they have done and if I had not said that I would not be doing justice to that Select Committee and to this Council, so for the life of me I can't understand how they got off the mark!

Now, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Li Yiu-bor during the lunch-hour, had told me that he intended to support me in as light-hearted a manner as possible, not that he did not support me, but because he wanted to show that this Council knew how to conduct its serious business and sometimes to have a good laugh out of it, and while some of his remarks were I think pretty facetious (Laughter) I would support his proposal for an old man's park which he himself proposed to live in later on, and which I suppose all Councillors would be invited to enjoy the facilities of in their old age. But, Mr. Chairman, while this motion has to do with gambling and perhaps I should have said more about it, I refrained from doing so because I already had one motion which was ultra vires and I wanted to have another opportunity to move another ultra vires motion at a later date. I think that the intent of this motion has been sincere and I hope members will appreciate that. There certainly has been no intention to derogate from the good work of the Urban Amenities Select Committee. It is primarily aimed at other Departments; we hope that they will give even greater support than that they have been giving, and it also was designed to explain to the public that this Council is seriously concerned about the maximum provision of public amenities. I would congratulate the Urban Amenities Select Committee on their long-term programme, but to get that programme implemented we need the greatest possible co-operation from all Departments concerned.

CHAIRMAN:-The proposal before the Council is that this motion in the name of Mr. CHEONG-LEEN should be referred to the Urban Amen- ities Select Committee. It is proposed by Mr. FORSGATE and seconded by Dr. BELL,

The question was put.

The motion was carried.

(3) MR. B. A. BERNACCHI moved the following motion:-

That a legal drafting Select Committee be formed to consider the draft of any proposed legislation including any proposed amendment legislation affecting any matter over which the Urban Council has been given statutory jurisdiction.

He said:-Mr. Chairman, in proposing this, I hope the final motion of today, I would like to cite, merely as an illustration, a matter which

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arose the other day in the Resettlement Policy Select Committee meeting. We had before us a paper dealing with a proposed draft of a Section in the Resettlement Amendment Ordinance. I was opposed to this draft because it put upon this Council the onus of deciding who was the owner of previously abandoned property where there are one or more claimants and I considered that the provisions should be similar to a provision in the Magistrate's Ordinance which gives a Magistrate power to return an article to the apparent owner without prejudice to any claims by anybody in the Supreme Court or District Courts. In expressing my opinion, an officer of the Resettlement Department attending the meeting said that whilst he appreciated my views, he thought the matter had already gone too far because it had passed the third reading in the Legislative Council and was about to be promulgated. In fact, although this Council is the Authority for a large portion of the Resettle- ment Ordinance and has a conventional say even in squatter control policy, yet we were not consulted over the numerous amendments to the Resettlement Ordinance even though we were consulted over the original Ordinance, and Resettlement as it exists today has its origin in a report of a Special Select Committee of this Council in, I think, 1953. Again, the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance from time to time needs amending and whilst the appropriate Select Committees are often consulted generally about amendments, very often the particular form of amendments, as drafted, are not referred to this Council for further consideration and indeed the only drafts that are usually forwarded to this Council in recent years, are drafts of regulations or bye-laws which we ourselves enact. Again, this is entirely different from the original drafting of the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance where there was in existence a legal drafting Select Committee specifically for that Ordinance, and, we were ably assisted by Mr. BODILLY of the Legal Department, now the Chief Justice of the Solomon Islands. In my submission it is essential for this Council, by means of a Select Com- mittee, to have a say in any proposed legislation affecting matters con- cerning the Urban Council and for that reason I propose that a Select Committee be formed for that specific purpose, always having in mind, of course, that we are not the Legislative Council and it is their privilege to have the last say. I suggest that this Council would indeed be delighted if the Legal Department would make one of their Crown Counsel available to sit on this proposed Select Committee. In most parts of the British Commonwealth, a Council such as we, has a permanent Government legal draftsman attached to it, and now that the Legal Department is almost at full strength I would invite Government to consider attaching one of the Crown Counsel to the Urban Services Department for legal drafting.

I am not saying that the Government, of whom indeed this Council is part, have deliberately by-passed this Council, but I am saying that it is an insult to us not to be consulted over ordinances, and indeed far

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