PARAGRAPHS FOR REPORT ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT
TERRITORIES
CONSTITUTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
It will be apparent from paragraphs
In
to
the Home Office paragraphs] that course (v) involves
constitutional difficulties. It would be unconstitutional
for the Crown to purport to use its Prerogative powers to
suspend or abrogate enacted law, I cannot therefore lawfully
exercise sich powers to relieve offenders generally of a
statutory penalty they may have incurred and thus to abolisa
that penalty. On the other hand the Precogative of Mercy,
exercised within the limits described in paragraph
is part of our recognized constitusional errangements.
In DOP(77)19 the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary
proposed, as a method of suspending capital punishment in the
Dependent Territories during the plucent administration, to
adopt a policy of pre-determined-anu automatic recommendation
of reprieve in all those capital cases in which the Governor
of a Dependent Territory had decided against exercising the Prerogative of Mercy under his delegated powers. The Attorney
General advised that it would be unconstitutional to suspend the
law in this way. The Lord Chancellor agreed with this advice
and added that he was convinced that it would be wrong to.
seek to secure abolition of the death penalty by use of the
Royal Prerogative,
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CONFIDENTIAL