SOUTH
CHINA MORNING: POST
MAY 31ST
73
Politics did not influence
10.1973
1+kk 14/16.
لادا
Queen's decision'
The Queen, in commuting Tsoi Kwok cheong's death sentence, had not allowed politics to influence her decision, barrister ut- law said yesterday.
Neither had the Queen allowed “saving face” for the Governor, Sir Murray MacLehose, to sway her decision, the lawyer added.
To suggest otherwise, he continued, would be to imply that Sir Alec Douglas Home forgot his duties as Secretary of State in tendering his advice to the Queen.
"I can't imagine a man of the calibre of Sir Alec being frightened from doing his duties by threats of a political row." he added.
The legal expert, who is a member of the Bar Association's Special Committee on Crime and Punishment, said he was "very surprised" by the report that the upholding of Tsoi's death sentence could have toppled Mr Edward Heath's Government.
However, he felt the socialists would undoubtedly have tried to make political capital out of the issue if Tsoi had been hanged.
He said the fact that capital punishment had been abolished in Great Britain and was now -proposed to be abolished in the United King
dom could not possibly affect those parts of the Commonwealth which still retained the death punishment.
Only the local legislature could abolish the death punishment in the Colony, he said.
"The exercise of mercy has nothing to do with the law. The law is that murderers must hang but it is always open to the Governor or the Queen to exercise mercy in any particular
case.
He could not predict what would happen in the future but said the Queen's decision in Tsoi's case was to rectify a “social and political blunder of the first magnitude."
"I hope and believe it will not be taken as a precedent for the reprieve of any persons convicted of a murder committed after March 1973," he added.
Meanwhile, some kaifong leaders have urged that capital punishment be retained in the
Colony, regardless of politics on the issue in Britain.
At the same time, the Chairman of the Urban Council, Mr A. de O. Sales, in the wake of the Tsoi case, raised the question of Parliament's powers over dependent territories, such as Hongkong, with the three visiting MPs.
The Vice chairman of the Causeway Bay Kaifong Association, Mr Shum Choi-sang, said the public should not allow party politics in Britain to hinder its efforts to have the death penalty retained.
He said: "Hongkong's situation is different from that in Britain and we, as well as the Government, must make the British Government realise this."
An Urban Councillor, Mr Wong Shiu- cheuck, who is organising a mass signature campaign for retaining capital punishment, said party politics on the issue should be disregarded.
"We have to retain the death penalty here, no matter if Britain likes it or not, and we'll let the British Government be aware of our very strong views on the matter," he added.
At a meeting with the visiting MPs yesterday morning, Mr Sales raised the question as to i whether the House of Commons, as the Sovereign Parliament for dependent territories like Hongkong, could properly exercise its powers on any matters respecting that particular territory in disregard of local opinion, customs and practices.
He was referring to the constitutional question and not to the commutation of Tsoi's death sentence in particular.
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In reply, the MPs, Mr Nicholas Ridley, Mr Michael Jopling and Mr Michael Shaw. explained the strong opinion on this matter in Parliament and in Britain.
Mr Sales described the meeting, lasting one and a half hours, as "highly informative, interesting and beneficial."
Other topics discussed between the PMs and Urban Councillors included the local housing problem, rent control. the anti-crime campaign. Japan Hongkong trade relations, education and transport.
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