DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27490, 26 October 1954, Page 13

DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

Labour Protest In Lords (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) <Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON. October 24 The Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, Lord Jowitt. protested when the House was asked to approve eight orders extending diplomatic immunity and privileges to certain international organisations. It should always be remembered, he said, that the socalled privileges conferred on some people meant a deprivation of rights for others. “I have heard of a case where a very serious assault took place on a domestic employee in a house by some person entitled to diplomatic immunitv, and that the girl was deprived of any sort of redress,” he said. He referred also to the case of a person who had no redress for a “shocking” libel made against him by the Soviet Tass News Agency, which was held to have—as a State organisation—diplomatic immunity. •‘Before the war there were 1082 persons attached to foreign diplomatic missions in Britain entitled to diplomatic immunity. Now there are 3945. a formidable figure.” Lord Jowitt referred to three of the orders, relating to the World Meteorological Organisation, the Universal Postal Union, and the International Telecommunications Union, and added: **l cannot see why it is necessary if you get people attending a meteorological conference or a postal union over here, that they should be given dinlomatic immunity. “I feel we have handed out this immunity too readily.” The Minister .of State in the Foreign Office. Lord Reading, said that these were matters on which there had been consultation with other countries, and on which agreements had been reached.