(
11. It cannot however be assumed that the governments of the
DOTS, or their inhabitants, would prove acquiescent if the
constitutions of the DOTS were amended to withdraw the
long-standing delegations of the royal prerogative in capital
cases; on the contrary, such a change would be much resented.
Furthermore, it would involve the major disadvantage of
depriving local representatives of any part in the procedure.
Governors and their Advisory Committees or Executive Councils
frequently agree upon the exercise of clemency when relevant
circumstances exist to justify this and even where they
disagree the Governor is often able to obtain the concurrence,
or at any rate the acquiescence of the Council or Committee
concerned in his decision to commute the death sentence.
The present local procedures result in commutation more often than not, and associate local opinion with it, and ever. where
they do not the Governor provides a valuable link between the
local representatives and the Secretary of State. Where any
rdevant ground for commutation exists, the Governor is better
placed to evaluate it (if necessary in consultation with the
trial judge, his Chief Justice, his Law Officers and other
local officials) than officials in the F C O (whose knowledge of local conditions and local law is necessarily sketchy)
would be, and there would seem to be definite practical
disadvantages in confining the exercise of the royal
prerogative to the Secretary of State and his officials in
London.
Abrogation of the Creech-Jones Doctrine
(
12. It has been suggested that if the Creech-Jones "doctrine"
were "abrogated" this would give greater freedom of decision
to the Secretary of State, and in particular enable him to
take into account extraneous matters which Governors do not
usually consider. Met for
ch-Jones D 107991 400,000 7/76 904 953