TNAG-0722-FCO40-920-Capital-punishment-in-the-Dependent-Territories-1978 — Page 32

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Mr Clarke HK&GD

RECEN

Draft to Mr Faste

No

HKC. 386

1

- 7 AUG 1978

PA

ན་

गेंद

0.51

NREGISTRY Action TAR

све

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT OVERSEAS TERRITORIES

8

1. I apologize for the lengthy delay in responding to Mr Stewart's minute of 12 May (attached) and Mr Quantrill's subsequent minute of 31 May (also attached) about the paper which I prepared for Sir Clive Rose.

2. I did not feel that any immediate action was necessarily called for since the paper which I sent to Sir Clive Rose under cover of my letter to him of 19 April has been effectively frozen in the sense that it has been given no further circulation, whether to Ministers or to officials in other Departments.

3. Mr Stewart's minute to Mr Stratton and myself of 12 May expresses some hesitations about the argumentation in paragraphs 11 et seq of my note, and Mr Quantrill's subsequent minute of 31 May covers an emasculated version of my note.

4.

Personally, I would much prefer to leave the position as it stands at present. Obviously, if the question of capital punishment in the dependent overseas territories is put up again for consideration by Ministers, it will be possible for me to ask Sir Clive Rose for liberty to modify my paper in the light of subsequent developments.

5. In any event, I must confess that I am not wholly persuaded by some of the comments made in Mr Stewart's minute of 12 May. I do not think it would be right for a paper going out as it were under my name to refrain from expressing any view on the likely reactions in at least some of the DOTS to a proposal to withdraw the long-standing delegation of the Royal Prerogative in capital cases. I am prepared to accept that some Governors of DOTS would be pleased to be relieved of the burden of the final decision in capital cases. But this is quite a different proposition from the likely reaction of the Governments of the DOTS concerned and indeed of the inhabitants of the territories.

6.

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Frankly it is always very difficult in a situation like this to divorce entirely the political from the legal considerations. One set of considerations bears upon the other.

7.

Perhaps we could leave it that the paper should stand in its present form, on the clear understanding (which is already agreed) that it is effectively "frozen"; but also on the understanding that, if the question is referred again to Ministers I would be

/prepared