TNAG-1005-FCO40-1254-Capital-punishment-in-Hong-Kong-1981 — Page 23

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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT OVERSEAS TERRITORIES

1.

Capital punishment is retained as the penalty for murder in the following seven British dependent overseas territories (the year of the last execution in each territory is given in brackets):

Belize

Bermuda

(1974)

(1977)

British Virgin Islands

(1972)

Cayman Islands

(1928)

Hong Kong

(1966)

Montserrat (1960)

Turks and Caicos Islands (1946)

This is

It is also retained in the West Indies Associated States. of no concern to us in the context of the present memorandum (since there can be no question of the British Government intervening in the internal administration of an Associated State) except in Anguilla, which is already administered to all extents and purposes as if it were a fully dependent territory, and which seems likely to formally revert to that status during 1980.

2. It has long been the policy of successive British Governments to regard the administration of justice in the dependent overseas terri- tories as a matter for local governments, in which it is not appropriate for the British Government to intervene. This includes the question of whether capital punishment should be available as a penalty, and, where it is available, the circumstances in which it should be used. The exercise of the Crown's prerogative of mercy has been delegated to Governors, and although this does not preclude the possibility of subsequent appeals either to the Secretary of State or to The Queen, it is accepted policy that in responding to such appeals (or in advising The Queen on how she should respond) the Secretary of State should support the decision of the Governor. The only circumstances in which the Secretary of State might reverse the Governor's decision would be if he thought that there might other- wise be a miscarriage of justice: this is extremely unlikely to arise, and in fact there is no such case on record.

3.. This policy, which is based on the assumption that the man on the spot is in a far better position than anybody in London to consider all the circumstances of a particular case, is known as the Creech- Jones doctrine, after the Colonial Secretary who set the policy out in a statement in December 1947 (copy attached at Annex A), although in fact he was doing no more than describing what was even then already a long established practice.

CONFIDENTIAL

/Hong Kong