Hong Kong
HONG
MAY 30th
73
STANDARD
Hanging would have
meant a Tory defeat
A DECISION in Parliament to recommend to the Queen not to show mercy to condemned killer Tsoi Kwok-cheong would probably have forced the British government to resign.
According 10 informed sources in Hongkong yesterday the Conservative government had no choice but to recommend mercy because the labour opposition would have forced 2 vole of censure against a rejection of the plea.
The Labour party was unanimously against hanging and a third of the Conservative party against it, according to the source, and a vote of censure would have meant "certain defeat” for the Government.
Normally, a "three line whip" (orders for all members of a party to vote on the party line) would be applied to an issue which could cause defeat for the government, said the source, but a whip had never been imposed on the capital punishment issue.
Constitutionally, according to the source. the
government was in "*a very severe position" and was powerless to uphold Sir
Murray MacLehose's decision. The alternative would have been the resignation of the Government.
The source claimed that public opinion in England was in favour of hanging as well as in Hongkong but that а majority decision in the "sovereign" Parliament m England was final for both Hongkong and the UK.
It was not the British Government's policy 10 interfere in the affairs of Hongkong, said the source, but he pointed out that the "ultimate sovereignty" was in London. The government in Britain "didn't want to accept the responsibility" for the decision on hanging but it was "a moral issue" beyond the powers of the Governor here.
He stressed that the British government had interfered in "one specific instance" and that there were no other fields in which there would be interference to such an extent.
The source could give no indication as to how Parliament would react to further pleas for mercy that the Governor might choose to turn down in the future.
10KK 14/16
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