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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

Secretariat for the purpose of conducting in-depth investigation on issues within the scope of urban services while ensuring that policies are implemented with justice.

Sir, I support the motion.

Mr. Walter M. SULKE (in English):—Mr. Chairman, all of us here are well qualified to speak on the Redress of Grievances because in our Wards we are exposed to a great many complaints and sometimes have great difficulties in dealing with them.

I made a New Year's resolution to be nice to all Civil Servants and so far I have tried very hard to keep my resolution. However, the Consultative Document on the Redress of Grievances makes this extremely difficult! In the Council we are used to having papers presented to us which sometimes quite openly, sometimes a little deviously, try to steer us in the direction the Civil Service thinks we ought to go. But we never get papers quite as blatant as this consultative document which really says that Civil Servants know best and one shouldn't really have to investigate their decisions or behaviour. Or, if one really insists on such shameless behaviour, then such investigations must be confined within limits set by—you guessed it—Civil Servants! And must, of course, be carried out by Civil Servants!

And that is the problem in Hong Kong: Decisions and policies are taken and made by the Civil Service. This has been going on for 150 years and it is only recent events which have shaken the firm edifice of the Civil Service decision-makers. Little wonder that they feel resentful to be finally dragged into the bright light of day in the political arena and that they really can't see why there should be an independent body to take a look at grievances, or to make sure that laws are justly applied.

Let me give you just three small instances of how the Paper begs the question: 1. The last sentence of paragraph 3 states: 'Most complainants are satisfied with the action taken or the explanations given at the Departmental level'. Well, all of us here, in this Council, have a great deal of experience trying to deal with the Redress of Grievances (what a wonderful Civil Service phrase that is! What we are, in fact, talking about are bitter and all too often justified complaints) and know that complainants very often are not satisfied but that they give up in despair because there is nowhere else to go, and in the very few instances where complainants have tried to take matters further, it takes a great deal of time, a great deal of energy, a great deal of patience, and in some cases years of waiting, and in the end the stone wall is not breached because the Civil Service, like any other guild or trade union, protects its own.

2. In paragraph 19 the Paper stipulates that the significant number of complaints of maladministration which UMELCO handles is indicative of continuing public faith in the system. However well UMELCO handles complaints (in the last analysis they really can't do any better than we have been doing through our Ward System, which is no criticism of UMELCO, it is just simply that that is the way the system works), all this indicates is that the complainant has nowhere else to go. It is certainly not indicative of any public faith in the system.

3.

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continuing public faith in the system. However well UMELCO handles complaints (in the last analysis they really can't do any better than we have been doing through our Ward System, which is no criticism of UMELCO, it is just simply that that is the way the system works), all this indicates is that the complainant has nowhere else to go. It is certainly not indicative of any public faith in the system.

Now after the paper tells us that everything in the garden is lovely and really there is no need for any other channel to handle complaints against Government, the Paper goes on to say if, God forbid, public pressure might actually insist on additions to this system, then let's make absolutely sure that system won't work. Just look very carefully at paragraph 23. The suggested possible Commissioner of Administration would be excluded from any investigation where there are 'dominant considerations of public interest'. But who is going to decide what are dominant considerations of public interest? By implication, it certainly would not be the Commissioner for Administration, it would be the Civil Service which is being investigated! I really cannot conceive of any situation in the Hong Kong context where considerations of public interest might prevent a thorough-going investigation of complaints of injustice. I well remember our colleague Mrs. Tu, when she was fighting her battle against the Police and other corruption, being told that she was acting against the public interest! This is too easy a barricade for the Civil Service to hide behind. Surely, even if there were such a thing as public interest, and remember we don't have real military secrets here, there is no reason why the Commissioner of Administration should then not carry on an investigation in secret.

The other exclusions in this paragraph concern judicial matters. Everywhere in the world, Courts and Judges make mistakes and injustices are perpetrated, either deliberately or accidentally. I see no reason why these should not be investigated. In fact, I understand that the origin of the idea of the Ombudsman came from the necessity of investigating injustices perpetrated by the judicial system. And then there are exclusions of Civil Service Department actions in personnel matters as well as commercial relationships of Departments with customers or suppliers. The latter would come more within the aegis of the ICAC, but the former surely should be open to the Commissioner of Administration to investigate. The Civil Servant is as much a citizen as anyone else and if he has a grievance against his employer and cannot get redress, it would, in fact, be very good for the Civil Service to have someone who could independently investigate.

This speech would become far too long if I went into further details and I think I have given enough examples to substantiate my grievance against the way the ideas in this Green Paper have been presented to us and the public.

In fact, I don't understand why the Government seems so afraid of installing a real Ombudsman in Hong Kong. For instance, experience in Sweden shows that out of 3,500 complaints handled each year by the Parliamentary