Sir D Watson
Parliamentary Unit
SECRET
97
PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION: DEATH PENALTY IN HONG KONG
1.
Mr Hal Miller MF (Conservative, Bromsgrove and Redditch)
has put down a Question for oral answer on 10 July to ask the Secretary of State what representations he has received about the enforcement of the death penalty in Hong Kong; and whether he will make a statement on the policy of HMG in this regard.
2.
As Ministers are aware, this is a very delicate subject.
The death penalty for murder still exists in Hong Kong as in certain other dependent territories. The Royal Prerogative of Mercy is exercised by the Governor on his undivided personal responsibility,
after consultation with his Executive Council. The nominated
Unofficial Members of Executive and Legislative Councils, reflecting public opinion in the Colony, are opposed to abclition of capital punishment; but it is accepted policy that the death sentence should be applied only in extreme cases.
3.
In fact, no-one has been hanged in Hong Kong since 1966.
But difficulty arose in mid-1973 when, in the case of a convicted murderer named Tsoi, the Governor considered that he must allow the law to take its course. The convicted man then presented a petition to The Queen for the exercise of Her residual Prerogative of Mercy, a step which formally involves the Secretary of State in advising Her Majesty. The doctrine in dealing with the awkward problem
presented by such petitions was originally laid down in 1947 in a despatch from Mr Creech-Jones to Colonial Governors, to the effect that the Secretary of State would in practice advise the Monarch to intervene only if there had been a manifest miscarriage of justice. The Tsoi case coincided with parliamentary debates in the United Kingdom on the death penalty generally and its application in Northern Ireland. In all the circumstances, the Secretary of State advised Her Majesty that Tsoi should be reprieved.
SECRET
14.