Statement of Semp
22 May 1973 policy needed
The shock reaction to the exercise by the Queen of her "residual prerogative" has subsided, and it is now possible to take a more dispassionate view.
When Sir Alec Douglas- Home advised Her Majesty to reprieve Tsoi Kwok-cheung, he ; must have realised that this course of action would be regarded in Hongkong as interference in a domestic matter decided according to domestic law.
The abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom extended to Northern Ireland
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only a few days ago) has been properly a matter for debate in the distant Palace of ! Westminster. This debate has served only as a reminder that abolition remains a controversial issue there.
The 1973 Hongkong Government Report concludes with the following words:
"The Government, though prevented by its peculiar situation from following a normal pattern of constitutional development, nevertheless attaches the greatest possible importance to ascertaining and, as far as practicable. meeting public aspirations and needs."
The advice tendered to the Governor by the members of his Executive Council not to commute the sentence of death passed on Tsoi was doubt- lessly given after a painstaking examination of the report of the trial judge, and the evidence and arguments advanced in the court proceedings.
Only the cynical have sought to link this denial of reprieve with the start of the Campaign against Violent Crime, and it is an unwarranted slur on the individuals concerned in the decision to imply that in a matter of life and death an extraneous consideration would have been given weight.
The abolitionists within our midst will not, I think, deny that they are a small minority. Public opinion overwhelmingly supports the view that those who deliberately put the lives of others in jeopardy should do so in the knowledge that the death sentence is not just a jumble of archaic words, but the mandatory penalty for murder under our law.
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The Royal Instructions require each death sentence to be considered selectively on its merits. The prelude to reprieve is surely a bona fide search for some mitigating circumstance. It is not within the power of the Governor, who is bound by the law, to follow
a policy of general reprieve.
It would be helpful if an M.P. could be persuaded to ask Sir Alec Douglas Home in the House of Commons whether his decision to advise Her Majesty to reprieve Tsol is to be rewarded as
any sort of
precedent, and (if permitted by the Speaker) the reasons for advising Her Majesty to exercise her nebulous residual prerogative in this case.
It would also serve to allay outraged public opinion if the Attorney-General would issue a statement that the Tsoi réprieve is not tantamount to the abolition of death penalty, and carries with it no message of encouragement for the thugs with guns or knives who are placing so many in fear of their lives.
Abolition in the U.K. was the outcome of a Private Member's Bill. If the abolitionists here can find one member of the Legislative Council willing to introduce such а bill in Hongkong, then by all means let abolition be debated. Until the law is changed it should be enforced, and not bypassed by Whitehall interference.
P.A.L. VINE
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