TNAG-0845-FCO40-1055-Visits-of-Foreign-and-Commonwealth-officials-to-Hong-Kong-1979 — Page 82

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Background

3. Hong Kong is one of seven British dependent territories that still retain capital punishment for murder, though there have been no executions since 1966. The courts pass about 10 death sentences each year. These are invariably commuted by the Governor on the advice of Exco (with, on occasion, some members, mostly unofficials, abstaining). Most death sentences are commuted to life imprisonment (which in Hong Kong means imprison- ment for life) though shorter terms are sometimes substituted (including a 15 year sentence for a British seaman, Mr Christopher Clements, convicted of murdering an elderly prostitute in 1977).

4. In 1973 a case arose in which the Governor, on Exco's recommend- ation, originally decided not to commute a death sentence. At

the time the question of capital punishment in Northern Ireland was under discussion in the House of Commons. When the case was appealed to The Queen, the then Secretary of State (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) recommended that it would be improper to allow an execution to take place in a dependent territory while the Parliamentary debate on Northern Ireland was taking place. The Governor then reversed his original decision and commuted the death sentence.

5. Mr Clarke wrote to Sir M MacLehose on 10 September as part of an exercise to establish Governors' views on the question of capital punishment (copy attached). It may be that the Governor has replied, but it would still be worth your discussing the question with Sir J Cater and Mr Griffiths.

Corporal Punishment

6.

It would be helpful to know whether the Hong Kong Government have yet decided to abolish corporal punishment. The former Attorney-General, Mr Hobley, informed us in May 1978 that the Government were considering the abolition of corporal punishment as a judicial sanction (though it would still be retained as a disciplinary measure in prisons) but we have heard no more, other

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