his meeting of 18 February to consider a capital
punishment case in Bermuda, the Secretary of State said
3.
that we should keep in mind the possibility of adding a
clause to the Criminal Justice Bill to amend the
Creech-Jones doctrine under which Governors take sole
responsibility for exercising the Prerogative of Mercy in
those Dependent Territores which still retain capital
punishment. The department have been told by the Home
Office that the Bill based upon the White Paper "Crime,
Justice and Protecting the Public" is now being prepared,
and that instructions to Counsel are to issue before the
summer break with a view to introducing the Bill in the
next session during the last week of November.
A
C
4. In recent years Ministers have considered every
possible aspect of the capital punishment issue. Advice
from officials and from the law officers has
by
concistently argued that the best solution on legal
grounds would be the abolition of capital punishment
primary legislation in the British Parliament. No other
course is free of practical or constitutional objections
the charge that of misleading Parliament if, for
instance, w
we were to attempt instructing Governors to
or
commute in every case.
5. Business managers are unlikely to find sufficient
parliamentary time to introduce a separate Bill for
abolition even if this were judged politically feasible.
Since abolition in the UK was achieved by a free vote it
might be considered contentious for the government to