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majority of the Hong Kong population are convinced that the death penalty would serve as a substantial deterrent to violent crime. It is also the common
view that even if it does not deter, then it should be imposed as a measure of the outrage of the community and because it is widely believed that evil conduct
should be visitated by punishment.
3.
I can assure members that all these realities
are well recognised. But the issue does not end there. As is well known, any prisoner sentenced to death in Hong Kong has the residual right to petition
Her Majesty The Queen for clemency.
The Queen,
in reaching her decision, acts on the advice of the appropriate United Kingdom Minister, namely the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. There
therefore, wider realities that bear on the issue of capital punishment in Hong Kong: those realities which face the Secretary of State as he tenders his advice to The Queen. One of these realities is that he is obliged to take into account the likely reaction in the UK Parliament, to which he is answerable, to the advice which he tenders to Her Majesty. Recent Secretaries of State have been of the opinion that they would not be supported in the House of Commons if they were to advise that death sentences should be carried out in Hong Kong. Moreover, there are no signs that this attitude of the House of Commons is likely to change in the immediate future. Even the terrorism and bleedshed in Northern Ireland has not produced in the UK Parliament a majority in favour of capital punishment
4.
It is in the light of all the realities that the Governor is bound to exercise his powers in the wider interests of Hong Kong.
5.
It is hardly surprising that this issue which has such far-reaching implications both here and in the United Kingdom has been the subject of frequent discussion between your government and HMG in the UK. In view of what members have so recently said on the subject of the death penalty, and in recognition of the strength of conviction with which so many people in Hong Kong hold to the opinion that
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