CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
HKG 380/2
11 March 1980
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
1.
You will recall that in his letter of 4 April 1978 the PUS wrote to all Officers Administering Governments to say that Ministers had considered whether the time had come to abrogate the Creech-Jones doctrine on capital punishment in dependent territories overseas, and had decided to defer any policy decision on the matter. The question arose again at the January 1979 Caribbean Governors' Conference.
2. Ministers have recently considered the whole matter again in great detail and have decided on a policy of letting sleeping dogs lie: as the PUS commented, this is an excessively delicate and tricky question". You will wish to know therefore that for the time being the Creech-Jones doctrine stands unchanged.
3. I fully appreciate that this decision means that Officers Administering Governments must continue to bear a particularly onerous burden. However,
I can assure you that all possible alternatives have been examined with the greatest care.
4.
This letter is addressed to Officers Administering Governments at Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Montserrat and Turks and Caicos Islands;
copies go also to Anguilla, Deputy British Government Representative Antigua, High Commissioner Bridgetown, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, St Helena, British Resident Commissioner New Hebrides and Wellington for information.
R D Clift
Hong Kong and General Department
CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
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