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The
Conservatives are known personally to favour it. Abolition of the death penalty for piracy would be likely to occasion little opposition or even comment, since this is not an offence currently prosecuted. The position regarding treason is more complicated, since it raises questions about handling treachery in time of war. Law Commission is currently conducting a review of the law from which consideration of the penalty is excluded: when the Commission reports and its Bill goes before Parliament, the question of the death penalty will inevitably come up for discussion. Although the executions in Belize in 1974 and the British Virgin Islands in 1972 did not provoke controversy in Parliament, this was probably because they received no publicity outside the territories in which they were carried out. The Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary's assessment is that, if an execution were now carried out in a DOT, there would be strong adverse reactions in Westminster and outside.
9. In Hong Kong, as a result of pressure from Her Majesty's Government prompted by the Tsoi case and of the Governor's success in persuading his Executive Council not to oppose commutation, every death sentence passed since 1966 has been commuted regardless of the merits of each case. The Governor's understanding with his Executive Council is not water-tight, however, and in response to local pressure to restore the use of the death penalty the Governor had to announce in late 1975 that whenever he commuted a death sentence he would impose the alternative punishment of life imprisonment unless exceptional circumstances justified a lesser punishment. Public opinion in Hong Kong remains strongly in favour of the death penalty. Although there was no strong reaction in Hong Kong to the executions in Belize and the British Virgin Islands in 1974 and 1972, again because of the lack of publicity, the Governor's assessment is that there would be strong reaction in Hong Kong if a
death sentence were now to be carried out in another DOT.
10.
Moreover,
There is therefore no means whereby Her Majesty's Government's own attitude to capital punishment can be assessed in relation to any particular case. in the consideration of any particular case of capital punishment in a DOT there is at present no way in which Her Majesty's Government's responsibilities for all DOT can be taken into account. In these circumstances, it is felt that a greater area of control should be opened for the Foreign Secretary in relation to capital
punishment.
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