2
47
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(Meanwhile, of course, the executions were still held up pending Privy Council consideration of the application for leave to appeal.)
3 August The Acting Governor wrote to Mr. Stewart about the procedure,
in such cases as Burrows and Tacklyn, once it had been decided that the Creech-Jones doctrine should no longer apply. He pointed out that, in such cases, British Ministers must be asked to make up their minds quickly. If they did not do so, Governors who had (perhaps of necessity) refused to commute would be put in the difficult situation of having constantly to postpone executions and these delays could have law and order implications.
The Acting Governor made it clear that he was particularly anxious that the new Governor of Bermuda should not be put in this position.
78
10 August Mr. Stewart informed the Acting Governor that the Cabinet had remitted the question of abrogating the Creech-Jones doctrine back to officials. He hoped that a final decision would. be reached well before Tacklyn's apeal was considered by the Privy Council.
6 Sept.
124
11 Sept.
127
(103)
165)
About this time, the FCO asked the Governors of Dependent Territories to give their views on the best way of bringing about a cessation of capital punishment in their territories - FCO telegram Personal No. 76 to Belmopan. Of the options offered, the Acting Governor in Bermuda chose (his telegram of 12 August) option (v): i.e. a statement in the House of Commons abrogating the Creech- Jones doctrine.
After his arrival Sir Peter Ramsbotham in his telegram No. Personal 34 of 27 October, supported this view. He pointed out that the Bermuda Assembly had two years previously voted to retain capital punishment; opinion might meanwhile have changed, but probably not enough to encourage the Opposition to try to force a vote on the issue.7
FCO telegram No. Personal 27 to Hamilton recorded that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council would sit on 6 October, that it was to be hoped that Ministers might by then or shortly afterwards have reached a decision on the matter of principle, and that therefore the FCO might wish to ask the Governor to postpone fixing a date for the executions assuming that the appeal to the Privy Council was rejected.
The Governor, conscious of the fact that once the Privy Council had rejected the application, it would be his duty to fix an early date for the executions, replied in his telegram No. Personal 26 that some reason would have to be found for a stay of execution: i.e. the petition for clemency must have been
received.
In paragraph 3 of that telegram the Governor reported that Mrs. Browne-Evans and the PLP could not be relied on to put in any such petition because they probably assessed that the majority
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/of