Registry
No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
superseded
DRAFT
LETTER
DSR11
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
Restricted.
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
................................In Confidence
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1
To:-
•
Type 1 +
Mr Stan Newens MP, Chairman
Mr Tony Gilbert, General Secretary
Liberation
313-315 Caledonian Road LONDON N1
From
Secretary of State
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
BERMUDA EXECUTIONS
Thank you for your recent letter about your Executive Committee's consideration of the Bermuda executions.
You suggest that, as Bermuda is still a dependency and as the British Government is therefore still
responsible for internal security, we could and should
have intervened to stop the executions. But I am afraid that it does not follow from our responsibility for internal security that we therefore have the power to intervene in the administration of justice. Under the policy that has been followed by successive British Governments, e only intervene in capital cases if we believe that a miscarriage of justice might otherwise occur. In my statement to the House on 5 December, I explained the judicial processes involved, and the reasons why I could not advise Her Majesty The Queen to intervene in the Bermuda case. It was by no means an easy, decision and certainly not one that I took lightly.
In the discussion following my statement, one of the points raised was this question of the irony of our being responsible for dealing with a situation where a threat to internal security arises, without being able to control events leading up to that situation. As I said at the time, I sympathise with the concern that was expressed over this. But it is a difficult question of balance, and an issue on which the House will wish to reflect when Parliament comes to consider the subject.
+
You say that the Creech-Jones policy on which I based my decision should not prevent us from acting honourably
/in
Dd 108087 400M S&K 1/77
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