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6. 51c Sir I Sinclair
02 SEP 1981 CONFIDENTIAL REGISTRY
DEST
Mr Williamson, HKG INDEX
PA
Action Taken
en
HONG KONG: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR MURDER
PS/Mr Ridley
74A
With reference to your minute of 27 August, capital punishment is, as you know, provided for under the law of seven dependent territories namely, Anguilla, Belize, Bermuda, BVI, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands, all of which have elected legislative bodies.
2. HMG have no power to change the law of Bermuda, Belize and (probably) Montserrat except by Act of Parliament.
3. The law of Anguilla, B.V.I., Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands could be changed by Order in Council but it would be most unusual to do this on a domestic matter when the local legislative body was manifestly unwilling itself to pass legislation to effect the change.
4. The law of Hong Kong likewise could be changed by Order in Council. Here, too, the Legislative Council (or at any rate the unofficial members thereof) would be reluctant to effect the change, which would not be popular with many local people, but as the Legislative Council contains no elected members and as its unofficial members are, I understand, not regarded as, or intended to be, representatives of the local population, it can be argued that HMG should effect the change without appearing to flout a body democratically elected to represent the people.
5.
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While one might expect HMG and the expatriate civil servants who administer Hong Kong (and who, since they obviously cannot be autonomous, are subordinate to H MG in the UK) to pay some regard to the opinions of local inhabitants (in so far as such opinions can be ascertained), the fact that there are not elected members in the Legislative Council to represent those inhabitants exposes HMG to stronger outside pressure in respect of Hong Kong to impose their own measures regardless of local sentiment than would be the case in respect of colonies with their own elected legislative bodies.
6. It is presumably for this reason that successive British Governments have since the TSOI case in 1973 been impelled to bring pressure on the Governor to commute every death sentence for murder so as to ensure that none is carried out even if there is no apparent mitigating factor that would justify exercise of the Royal prerogative of mercy that is delegated to him under the constitution. Even before the Tsoi case colonial governors in Hong Kong and elsewhere were pressed by some UK administrations to commute whenever
CONFIDENTIAL
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