Registry No
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret,
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
CONFIDENTIAL
DRAFT AMENDED LETTER
To:-
All Officers Administering the Government (see attached list)
Type 1 +
From
JAB Stewart Pus
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
......................................................................................In Confidence
DSR11
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT OVERSEAS TERRITORIES (DOTS)
1.
John
Told
you
in his
движка
You will by now have seen telegram no.
of Herch
telling you that Ministers have decided to defer a decision
in this written on the policy on capital punishment in dependent overseas territories. As you know from/Stewart letter of 27 January, Ministers were asked to decide whether the time had come to
really t
W DOT. abrogate the Creech-Jones doctrine so as to leave the Secretary of State completely free to take into account all
the considerations which seemed to him relevant when making
a recommendation to The Queen on the exercise of the
Prerogative of Mercy. You
m mad word that
↑
2. There are practical objections to an abrogation of
"Creech-Jones". There are also legal objections to using the royal prerogative as a means of suspending or abolishing the death penalty. Capital punishment cannot be abolished for murder in those DOTs which have decided to retain it,
without giving either Parliament in Britain or the local legislatures in the DOTS the opportunity to debate the issue
and to make decisions on it. If it were finally decided by Ministers that capital punishment in the DOTS must be totally abolished, without any exceptions, this could only be done either by Bills in the local legislatures or by a
Bill in the UK Parliament, except, of course, in those
territories in which the law could be altered by Order in
Council. There are considerable difficulties over any
such course.
3. As a result of all these considerations Ministers have
decided to defer a decision. They are, however, concerned
about the possibility of another case, such as the recent
one in Bermuda, where two men were hanged; this caused
CONFIDENTIAL
/...
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