CONFIDENTIAL
fully elected legislatures. constitutionally improper
It would be
(iii) Paragraph 8. As far as timing is concerned, we do not see why we cannot wait for the outcome of the referendum on capital punishment to be held in Bermuda on 28 August before taking a final decision on whether to add a capital punishment clause to the Criminal Justice Bill. Since the Criminal Justice Bill is not going to be published until after the summer holidays, there is no reason why Counsel should not be given additional instructions to insert this clause when the outcome of the Bermuda referendum is known. If the referendum were to solve our problem in Bermuda, there would be no need for primary legislation to deal with the problem in the other five Caribbean territories.
(iv) Paragraph 11. We think that it would be helpful to make clear that the second part of this paragraph applies only to the Caribbean DTS and Bermuda. We suggest the following redraft:
"There is no legal requirement to consult the Dependent Territories but it is our unvarying practice not to legislate for the DTs without consulting them and a very strong case would need to be made for going ahead against their wishes with legislation affecting their internal affairs. WIAD will handle this so far as Bermuda and the Caribbean are concerned on a case by case basis, while making it clear to the DTS that we intend to introduce legislation to abolish (for Hong Kong see para 13).
We
(v) Paragraph 13. The Governor has expressed more than just misgivings about the course of action proposed. would therefore prefer to replace "misgivings" by "opposition" in the first sentence. The rest of this paragraph also needs to be strengthened. We suggest that it should be redrafted as follows:
"We recognise the difficulty in which the Governor would be placed by any move which could draw attention to the retention of capital punishment in Hong Kong and the current practice of commuting the death sentence of convicted prisoners. Moreover, at a time when we are seeking to strengthen the Hong Kong Government's autonomy in the run up to 1997, it would be most undesirable for capital punishment to be abolished in Hong Kong by UK legislation. No action we took before 1997, could prevent the Hong Kong legislature from reintroducing the death penalty after that date, whether or not it had been formally abolished. Local sensitivites argue strongly that the question of whether or not to abolish capital punishment should be dealt with in a purely Hong Kong context. There is also the Chinese dimension: we already expect to have a difficult time with the Chinese over the Hong Kong Bill of Rights, where the Chinese have accused
BUGACU
CONFIDENTIAL