74
HKC 386/
нка
RECEN
13 FEB 1978
DESK OFFICLA
INDEX
2.51
PA
REGISTRY Action Taken
No
S
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
3 FEB 1978
154
Bermuda Executions
Thank you for your recent letter about your Executive Committee's consideration of the Bermuda executions.
You suggest that, as Bermuda is still a dependency and as the British Government is therefore still responsible for internal security, we could and should have intervened to stop the executions. But I am afraid that it does not follow from our responsibility for internal security that we therefore have the power to intervene in the administration of justice. Under the policy that has been followed by successive British Governments, we only intervene in capital cases if we believe that a miscarriage of justice might otherwise occur. In my statement to the House on 5 December, I explained the judicial processes involved, and the reasons why I could not advise Her Majesty The Queen to intervene in the Bermuda
It was by no means an easy decision and certainly not one that I took lightly.
case.
You say that the Creech-Jones policy on which I based my decision should not prevent us from acting honourably in defence of human lives. I agree.
There are nevertheless other
considerations that enter into the decision besides the question of the rights and wrongs of capital punishment, not least the fact that the Bermuda Assembly is elected on the basis of universal adult franchise and that in 1975 its members voted by a majority of 25 votes to 9 in a free vote to retain capital punishment. I could not therefore claim to be in any ignorance of what the local will was on this question. As a result of the disturbances that were caused by the recent executions, the Speaker of the Bermuda Assembly has appointed a Select Committee to reconsider the question of capital punishment in the territory.
Stan Newens Esq MP
/You refer