CONFIDENTIAL
Secretary of State
All members of the DOP
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
1.
Sentences of death have been passed on two convicted murderers in Bermuda. The local Prerogative of Mercy Committee has advised that the Law should take its course and the Acting Governor has accepted this advice. Petitions to HM The Queen to exercise the Prerogative of Mercy are understood to be in preparation.
2.
Capital punishment is retained in seven dependent territories: Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Hong Kong (as well as in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), In 1965 and again in 1970 the Secretary of State of the day invited the Governors of the Territories concerned to consider introducing changes in legislation on capital punishment in order to bring it into line with that in the UK. The legislatures of the Territories concerned refused to do so. All available evidence suggests that there has been no change in public opinion in the dependent territories on the issue of capital punishment since 1970. The result is that policy continues to be governed by the "Creech Jones" formula of 1947 whereby the Secretary of State does not intervene if a Governor does not exercise the Prerogative of Mercy, unless there has been an evident miscarriage of justice. The Prime Minister may recall, however, that when he considered the issue of capital punishment in 1974 he took the view that there was "no prospect of returning to the "Creech Jones" formula at present nor of sustaining it when challenged in the House".
3. I should like to endorse the Prime Minister a view which seems to me even more valid today than it was three
CONFIDENTI AL
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