CONFIDENTIAL
3. If for any unforeseen reason the Secretary of State needed
to advise The Queen on the use of her prerogative of mercy in
the case of Tacklyn and Burrows in Bermuda or of Jones in Belize, I suggest that it would be almost impossible for the Secretary of State to advise against the recommendations of the Governors concerned and their local Prerogative of Mercy Committees, while the Creech Jones formula remains the policy of the Government.
If matters come to that pass, I recommend that an announcement outside Parliament should be made during the recess. This would
be difficult but it would provide the Secretary of State with a sound basis for advising The Queen to exercise her prerogative.
The department's Legal Adviser concurs.
21 July 1977
B. Steend
зав.
JAB Stewart
Hong Kong & General Dept
cc:
PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts
PS/PUS
Mr Bickford
If
Paragraph 3 provides for what seems to be a rather remote contingency; fortunately in some ways, though it is regrettable that the Bermuda cases should have remained so long in suspense. Ministers consider that Mr Stewart's recommendation would appear unacceptably disrespectful of Parliament, an alternative might be to arrange for a Written Parliamentary Question and Answer after the DOPC meeting but before the recess. In that event the necessary submission to The Queen could perhaps just be made in time. We shall have to dispense with advance information to Governors, but this, though highly desirable, is not essential.
Ho Stamey бышен
HSH Stanley.
21 July 1977
2
CONFIDENTIAL