TNAG-0600-FCO40-748-Capital-punishment-in-Dependent-Territories-1977 — Page 39

CONFIDENTIAL

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT TERRITORIES

Note by Officials

Introduction

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 their advice. An application for special leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has been made by one of the condemned men, and will be heard

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on 6 October. It is not thought likely to be successful, A petition to welchs The Queen to exercise her residual Prerogative may therefore be expected.fact that

If such a petition is made it would fall to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to tender advice to Her Majesty.

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The present position in the Dependent Territories

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Capital punishment is retained in seven Dependent Territories: Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Hong Kong. In these Territories the Prerogative of

Colmives / Mercy is retained by The Queen but the decision whether or not to exercise (Swices /

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it rests with the Governor.

In all ternil-chives

In most saves the constitutional instruments for

delegating the Prerogative contain a formal requirement for the Governor to hold certain consultations before he takes his decision, which is personal and

deliberate. If the Governor does not exercise the Prerogative, the Secretary

of State does not advise The Queen to intervene, unless there has been an evident miscarriage of justice. This policy was first enunciated by the Colonial Secretary, Mr Arthur Creech Jones, in a Parliamentary Reply on 11 August 1947 (Hansard Cols 230-233: Annex A). It may be summarised

follows

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"The normal practice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies is himself

not to intervene in an individual case and not to advise His Majesty to

intervene. There would be most unfortunate results if the Secretary of

State followed any other course. First it would be necessary for him to

consider fully the facts of each case and all the considerations which

bore upon it.

but further, and more important, for the Secretary

of State to intervene would conflict with the plain intention of the

constitutional instruments

which set up a better machinery for

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CONFIDENTIAL