TNAG-0721-FCO40-919-Capital-punishment-in-the-Dependent-Territories-1978 — Page 164

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CONFIDENTIAL

-9 FEB 1978-

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OFFICIA

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Mr Murray

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PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts

BERMUDA EXECUTIONS: LETTER FROM MR ARTHUR LATHAM MP

1.

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In the attached letter to the Secretary of State, Mr Arthur Latham (Labour Paddington) touches on two very sensitive points that arose from the executions in Bermuda last December: the advice given by the Bermudian Attorney-General that The Queen, by rejecting the petition addressed to her on behalf of the condemned men thereby exercised her prerogative of mercy and thus left the Governor powerless to intervene further; and the dispute as to whether it was the British Government or the Governor and Government of Bermuda who were

"responsible" for the hangings.

2.

On the first point the Bermudian Attorney General's advice formed the basis of the letter from the Deputy Governor to Lord Fenner-Brockway to which Mr Latham refers in his second paragraph. We do not have a copy of that letter but Sir A Duff saw it when he went to Bermuda and he quoted the operative

The FCO paragraph in his memorandum to the PUS of 20 December. Legal Adviser, in his minute of 1 January, argued that the letter to Lord Brockway overstated the Governor's powerlessness:

Sir Ian Sinclair believes that if some new element or factor had arisen the Governor could certainly have granted at least a stay of execution pending consultation with the Secretary of State over the possibility of commutation.

3. On the second point, there is no doubt that under existing policy (the so-called Creech-Jones doctrine), the decision to The desire to carry out the executions was taken in Bermuda.

retain capital punishment was reaffirmed by the Bermudian Government in 1975 (in the clear knowledge that this was contrary to the British Government's wish); the decision not to prevent the law taking its course in this case was taken by the Acting Governor on the overwhelming advice of his Prerogative of

CONFIDENTIAL