TNAG-0400-FCO40-446-Review-of-the-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 168

CUNFIDENTIAL

Legal Advisers

Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1

Telephone 01-930 2323 Extn 1154

M G de Winton Esq CBE MC

Law Officers' Dept

Royal Courts of Justice London WC2A 2LL

Your reference

Our reference

Date

25 April 1973

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DEATH SENTENCE: HONG KONG

1.

M. Stuart (HKIOD)

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The Attorney General will shortly be getting, if indeed it has not already arrived, a copy of a Note from the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to the Prime Minister about a death sentence in a murder case in Hong Kong. Very briefly, the convicted man, TSOI Kwok-cheong, was convicted of the murder of a young man who was killed in the course of a gang robbery. Two other people were involved with him: both were convicted of robbery and one also of manslaughter. The accused appealed, but his appeal was dismissed by the Full Court of Hong Kong. He petitioned the Governor for clemency but, after receiving the advice of his Executive Council, the Governor ordered that the law should take its

course.

2.

TSOI Kwok-cheong has now petitioned the Queen for the exercise of Her residual prerogative of mercy. The legal position appears to be that under the Letters Patent and Royal Instructions the Sovereign's Prerogative of Mercy is delegated to the Governor. Nevertheless, this delegation does not entirely empty the Sovereign of His own Prerogative of Mercy and thus the residual possibility of petitioning Her Majesty is theoretically open. It is, of course, the duty of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to advise Her Majesty in this matter. According to the procedures which are currently in force it would be very difficult for him and contrary to normal practice to advise the Sovereign to intervene, the only conceivable circumstance in which this might happen being if there were indications that a miscarriage of justice had occurred (which in our view is not the case here).

3. In order to help you in considering the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary's Note, I am enclosing a copy of the Despatches of 12 December 1947 and 13 May 1971 which set out

COURTOIMMUTAT

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