Lai See | A case in point for Hong Kong's woeful archives

Readers may be aware of a recent British High Court ruling that three elderly Kenyans tortured during a rebellion against British colonial rule can proceed with compensation claims against the British government. The Kenyans say they were beaten and sexually assaulted by officers acting for the British administration trying to suppress the "Mau Mau" rebellion in the 1950s.

For its part, the government says it cannot be held legally responsible for abuses that were perpetrated many years ago and that many of the key decision-makers were dead and therefore unable to give their side of the events.

However, what is interesting from a Hong Kong perspective is the key role to be played by documents from the period. Justice Richard McCombe says in his ruling: "I consider that I am justified in concluding that the available documentary base is very substantial indeed and capable of giving a very full picture of what was going on in government and military circles in both London and Kenya during the emergency."

Given the scale of the destruction of Hong Kong government documents since 1997, it is highly unlikely that government documents will give much of a picture of, say, the first 10 years of "one country, two systems" in action.

Official record-keeping has become such a concern that the Archives Action Group was set up some years ago to try to redress the woeful state of Hong Kong's archives and persuade the government to introduce an Archives Law establishing legally binding procedures to be followed.

In a damning article in the Hong Kong Lawyer, William Waung, a retired judge and founding member of the Archives Action Group, points to the appalling manner in which government documents and archives are managed. In the past five years, "government departments and bureaucrats have been reluctant to turn over their records for selection and preservation" by the Public Records Office, it says.

He further notes that the number of records turned over to the office dropped 44 per cent between 2008 and 2009 and in 2009 to 2010. Also, important government policymaking agencies, such the Chief Executive's Office and the Chief Secretary's Office, have not made records available for selection since 1997.