CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: COMMITTEE OF MERCY
1.
In principle, I see no difficulty in substituting a committee of impartial outsiders to advise the Governor in each of the remaining dependencies that has retained the death penalty for murder on capital cases in place of the existing Mercy Committee or Executive Council.
2.
In practice, however, I do see difficulties
a. it will involve amending the constitutional instruments;
b. it will divorce the Governor from local knowledge;
c. its findings will not necessarily satisfy local opinion;
d. local Ministers or unofficials may resent their exclusion
from the proceedings; and (last but not least)
an impartial body will presumably base its recommendations on the merits of each individual case - where there are no grounds for mercy, it will presumably recommend accordingly and it will be difficult for the Governor (or the Secretary of State) to commute the sentence (regardless of the merits) in deference to UK abolitionist sentiment.
3. The present local set-up is not wholly bad - it frequently results in commutations on the recommendation of the local body, though admittedly in cases where no real grounds for commutation exist the Hong Kong situation is unsatisfactory because the Governor ignores the law, and the situation in other places has exposed the Governors to undue pressure from this office.
4. My inclination is against interference with the local set-up the right local cure is to amend the local law imposing the death penalty for murder.
5. It would, as an alternative, be possible to constitute an impartial committee in this country to make recommendations to the S of S when he receives a petition to Her Majesty after the Governor has decided that the law must take its course but once again such a committee would presumably have regard to the merits of each case regardless of abolitionist sentiment in the UK.
23 April 1980
A.R.R.
A R Rushford
Deputy Legal Adviser