IT IS difficult to get too excited about this week's announcement that two local Chinese lawyers are to fill top posts in the Legal Department.
That is not to belittle the qualities of either individual. Daniel Fung, the new Solicitor-General, is highly respected in the local legal community. If and when he steps up to be Attorney-General, a post due to be localised within the next 12 months, then he will be a vast improvement on incumbent Jeremy Mathews, whose six-year reign has seen the Legal Department stumble from one mishap to another.
Peter Nguyen is similarly to be congratulated on being prepared to give up the much more lucrative rewards of the private sector to become the new Director of Public Prosecutions.
But no one should be under any illusion that many more will follow in their footsteps. Finding a few local lawyers willing to fill the top government law posts, where prestige and a sense of commitment help balance the financial loss they suffer, may be possible. But encouraging others to transfer from the private sector to more junior positions in the Legal Department remains a thankless task. The gap in salaries - top barristers can earn more in one day than the Attorney-General makes in a month - is just too wide.
Parachuting a couple of people from the private sector, in an attempt to meet the Government's target of filling three out of five of the top law officer posts with locals by next year, only serves as a reminder that localisation within the Legal Department has been so slow there are no qualified internal candidates available.
Nor will it necessarily help meet the Basic Law's requirement that the post-1997 Attorney-General be a Chinese national with no right of abode overseas: Mr Fung is a UK passport holder. Although he has offered to renounce this, Beijing has complete discretion to decide whether or not he can regain Chinese nationality.
