NEW CLAUSE.—(Protection of public servants against prosecutions and suits in Burma.) (Hansard, 29 April 1935)

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
This Clause reproduces, with the necessary modifications, the Clause we discussed earlier this afternoon regarding the prosecution of criminal proceedings against officials, and civil proceedings against officials. The only difference is that as this Clause applies to Burma it makes no reference to the Governor-General. Otherwise it is an identical Clause.

§ Sir H. CROFT
I hope the Committee will not allow this Clause to go through without realising that in the case of Burma we are dealing with a country which is not so far developed politically as the great Indian Empire to which we have been referring earlier on. I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is satisfied that in a country with such little experience as Burma it is desirable that we 110 should allow cases of this kind to go forward without the Governor definitely giving his sanction. It is a much simpler matter than in British India, because here you have all these officers much more closely under the hand of the Governor, and a case must inevitably come up speedily to him. Surely this is a case where it would be wise to see that there should be no action of a frivolous or vexatious character to which the Governor did not first give his sanction. Is it necessary to put Burma on all fours with India in this matter? We doubt whether it would be wise, and we think that greater security should be given to officials against actions of this description.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
I will certainly give my views on the point raised by the hon. and gallant Member. I should have thought that if he is right in saying that Burma is politically less advanced than India, the type of vexatious, frivolous litigation which we were considering in our earlier discussion would be less likely to occur there than in British India.

§ Mr. RAIKES
Why?

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
The suggestion in the previous discussion was that as a result of political agitation frivolous and vexatious proceedings would be taken. I should have thought that one would be less likely to find that sort of thing in what has been described by my hon. and gallant Friend as politically a more primitive society. My reason, however, for not acceding to the suggestion, is that it would not be right to make the kind of condition suggested as a condition to be fulfilled before civil proceedings could be launched. I think it would, or might be, prejudicial to the defendant. If a case has to go to the Governor and he decides that it is a good one and should go forward, I cannot think that this would be a desirable start for the case from the point of view of the defendant. The Governor will have to be very careful not to withhold his leave in any case where there is any shadow of foundation for a claim. It would also, as I stated before, be very undesirable to appear to give a general protection to officials against civil claims.

§ Sir H. CROFT
May I remind the Committee that we give such little time to 111 these vital questions? Here we have the future Colony of Burma, if it is to be called such—we do not know exactly what it is to be called—and I suppose it will be as in the case of Ceylon, where the whole thing went through the back door by an Order-in-Council. Now we have the very important territory of Burma to deal with. What is the harm of providing that the Governor shall be empowered to do what I suggest? He has only to initial the document which will come to him. If there is a charge against an official of the Civil Service he can, if he thinks fit, say that it shall go forward.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
A civil claim is not a charge.

§ Sir H. CROFT
I am sorry that I have not been brought up in the legal atmosphere of my hon. and learned Friend.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
It is not a question of legal atmosphere. Anybody knows what a charge is. These civil claims, which may represent claims in respect of money and so forth have nothing to do with a charge.

§ Sir H. CROFT
I realise that the cases are absolutely different, but when the Solicitor-General says that with regard to Burma we need have no fear of this kind of thing, because we may have a different atmosphere there than in India—

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
indicated dissent.

§ Sir H. CROFT
Well, the hon. and learned Member said that Burma is not the sort of place where you are likely to have frivolous or vexatious proceedings.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
I did not say that. I said that if my hon. and gallant Friend is right that Burma is politically less advanced, I should have thought that frivolous and vexatious proceedings would be less likely in Burma.

§ Sir H. CROFT
The Solicitor-General said that he would have thought that it would have been rather the other way than I suggested, because Burma was politically less advanced than India.

§ The SOLICITOR-GENERAL
I expressed no opinion, as to whether Burma 112 was politically less advanced or more advanced than India. I took the hon. and gallant Member's own description.

§ Sir H. CROFT
I was expressing the opinion of the Joint Select Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Sir R. Craddock), who has played such a distinguished part in Burma, will probably agree with me when I say that the whole standard of Burma is, if not 100 years, at least 50 years behind that of India. I thought that was generally accepted. It was indicated in all the documents that were submitted to the Round Table Conferences and also to the Joint Select Committee. I did not think that the actual words were required to be quoted. Where you have a situation like that, surely it is easier for what one might call frivolous attempts to be made to involve officials in proceedings than in a more highly developed political country. The only reason why I mentioned Ceylon was that the people are comparable with those of Burma. They have the same religion. Does the hon. Member on the Government Bench dissent? I thought that Buddhists were in Burma as well as Ceylon. I thought that it was not unfair to say that Buddhism was the principal religion of the two countries. You have not the same kind of disturbances in Burma that you have in India, but there are light-hearted people there who very much enjoy a political joke, just as there are in Ceylon. Anyone who has been following the results in Ceylon since we set up the Constitution there must know that there is a spirit of frivolity and levity in the decisions of the State Council which we want to avoid in Burma. It is for these reasons that I say that it is not unlikely that we shall have the same kind of case arising in Burma that we have seen in India.
In regard to India there are sheets of cases where officials have been playing their part and doing their obvious duty, but when there is a riot, or murder, or any sort of disturbance, and the official does his duty, immediately a case is brought up against him by political agitators, with the result that the conduct of the police or of the murdered official, or of the murdered official's wife is brought into question whilst the criminals, or those who were guilty of the offence, get away scot free. It is 113 against that kind of thing that we want to endeavour to guard the people of Burma. I do not propose to divide again on this subject, although the Solicitor-General has not been able to meet us. I suggest that he should give a little more consideration to this matter at a later stage of the Bill, and I hope that he will see that it would be advisable that the Governor of Burma should himself sanction proceedings against an officer under the new Constitution.