CODE 18-77
Miss Britton
UND
CONE IDENVI LAU
Reference
APPEALS FOR CLEMENCY
1. We spoke about APS/Mr Sainsbury's minute of 16 October to Mr Cooper requesting that a review be set in hand of our policy on appeals. The purpose of this minute is to suggest some of the issues that the review might cover. You will be offering views in due course; you may also wish to comment on what follows. Comments from Mr Rankin would also be welcome.
It
2. There is no consistency about our present policy. relies on a case-by-case approach taking into account factors such as public and Parliamentary pressure for Ministerial intervention, circumstances, and chances of success. The main objective of the review will be to determine what, if any, alternatives exist to this approach, and whether it might be feasible and/or desirable to seek a more consistent policy.
3.
Among the aspects to cover, I would include the following:
But we
Locus: direct in the case of a British citizen. have no consular responsibility to concern ourselves with the fate of foreign citizens.
Grounds for intervention: stronger where we have a direct locus. The form of an appeal will usually focus on the humanitarian aspect for presentational reasons. But the motive for intervening, whether expressed or not, will vary with circumstances. Some cases could be purely humanitarian: ie we have no reason to challenge the basis of the conviction, or the severity of the sentence. This might apply, for example in the case of a British citizen sentenced to death in the US for murder (I do not know whether Ministers have in fact ever intervened in a case of this kind, but Consular Department are researching appeals in recent years concerning cases where we have had a direct locus). Other cases might be what one could call "modified humanitarian" where again the conviction is sound, but the capital penalty appears disproportionate to the offence according to our usage. An example might be the Gregory case in Malaysia, or (more shakily perhaps) the cases of black South Africans convicted according to the
SB5ADP
CONFIDENTIAL