Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
4 January 1978
From The Minister of State
The Rt Hon The Lord Goronwy-Robert 3801
Ava Davidi
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51
- 5 JAN 1978
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
REGISTRY
PA Action Taken
No
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3
David Owen has asked me to thank you for your letter of
376-19 December with which you enclosed a letter from Sir David Trench
about capital punishment in the dependent territories.
HKC 380/1
(#)
Sir David draws attention to a case in Hong Kong in 1973 when The Queen over-ruled the Governor in the exercise of the prerogative of mercy in a capital case, and points out that this was apparently contrary to the policy which Dr Owen said, on 5 December, had been followed since 1947. Dr Owen was indeed aware of this case when he made his statement in the House. But he did not believe there was any inconsistency in this since in 1973, in the unique circumstances of Hong Kong, the policy to which he referred was considered not to apply.
The case in question involved one Tsoi Kwok-cheong who was sentenced to death for murder. After all the normal appeal channels had failed the Governor considered the case and decided that there were no grounds to justify his exercising the prerogative of mercy. Tsoi then sent a petition to The Queen. The then Secretary of State, Sir Alec Douglas Home, in considering the advice he should give, was strongly influenced by the fact that, because of its peculiar circumstances (with which Sir David will, of course, be familiar), Hong Kong is a territory where the legislature is not democratically elected by the local population. In all of the other dependent territories where capital punishment is retained, there are democratically elected local legislatures which have, in every case, confirmed the decision not to abolish the death penalty.
/Because of