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Hong Kong
4. The Creech-Jones doctrine is however only a convention, and does not deprive the Secretary of State of his power to intervene should he choose to do so. In 1973 a case arose in Hong Kong where the Secretary of State of the day, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, made it clear that he was prepared to intervene to prevent an execution if the Governor would not reverse a decision he had already taken (on advice from his Executive Council) not to commute a capital sentence. At the time, the House of Commons were considering the question of capital punishment in Northern Ireland, and Sir Alec considered that it would be improper to allow an execution to take place in a British dependent overseas territory while the debate was in progress.
5. In the event, the Governor did agree to commute the sentence himself, although nobody in Hong Kong was left in any doubt that this was done under pressure from London. This departure from the normal policy of non-intervention has since been defended, somewhat unconvincingly, on the grounds that Hong Kong differs from other territories where capital punishment is retained because the decision to retain capital punishment had not been endorsed by a democratic- ally elected local government.
6.
As a result of this case, the position in Hong Kong is now some- what different from that in the other dependent overseas territories where capital punishment is retained. Ever since 1973, the Governor, ostensibly on the advice of his Executive Council, has commuted every capital sentence that has come before him. Occasionally, in cases where they believe there are no mitigating circumstances, members of the Executive Council may abstain rather than recommend the Governor to commute. But they never now vote in favour of an execution being carried out, and this means that in effect the death sentence has been suspended in Hong Kong. The Governor recently reported that he believes this position can be sustained indefinitely. At the same time, he advised that there could be a major row if any attempt were made to change Hong Kong law by imposing abolition from London.
The Disadvantages of the Present Policy
7.
The continued retention of capital punishment for murder in the dependent overseas territories is controversial because of a wide- spread feeling both within Parliament and among certain sectors of the general public that it is not appropriate for capital punishment to be retained in any part of The Queen's realm when Parliament has repeatedly made clear its decisive rejection of such punishment. The decision of the then Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary not to intervene to prevent two executions taking place in Bermuda in December 1977 provoked a storm of protest in Parliament and elsewhere in this country, and when, shortly afterwards, it looked as if a further execution might take place in the British Virgin Islands, Ministers came under sustained pressure (including a coordinated campaign by various British branches of Amnesty International) to
/intervene
LA Iན་གས : ex་
CONFIDENTIAL