CONFIDENTIAL
6
·
position of trade unions in Bermuda was one aspect which could still
be criticised.
16. Mr Cortazzi said we did not want to force Bermuda to indepen- dence but we were worried about the devolution of too much power to the local government. Mr Duff added that recent experience of depen- dent territories suggested that too much delegation reduced the desire of the people of the territory for independence; in the long- term this was not in the interests of the British Government, whose general policy was to bring colonies to independence.
17. Mr Cortazzi then said that he was unhappy about the Governor's proposal that the advice of the Frerogative of Mercy Committee in capital cases should be made binding on the Governor. Mr Stewart explained that the Secretary of State had decided that he should seek from Parliament authority for him to be the final Court of Appeal in capital murder cases in dependent territories and to be able to take into account all the circumstances of each case including the implications for law and order and the feelings of the House of Commons. He would, of course, need to get this through Cabinet first. Mr Cortazzi said that, assuming he did so, any decision to make the advice of the Frerogative of Mercy Committee binding on the Governor would make the Secretary of State's position more difficult. Sir P Ramsbotham accepted this but pointed out that it would make the Governor's position easier. Mr Cortazzi said that at the least no decision on this should be taken until the debate in Farliament or before the enquiry in Bermuda by the Select Committee into Capital Punishment had been completed. Sir P Ramsbotham agreed but made the point that the question of capital punishment looked very different in Bermuda where it was known that there were caches of weapons and where there was an underlying feeling of frustration among the black sections of the community. It was a fragile society in an area the size of Cheltenham, in which capital punishment was felt to be a real and necessary deterrent.
CONFIDENTIAL
/18.