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CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
File
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Sir Murray MacLehose GBE KCMG KCVO Governor and Commander-in-Chief HONG KONG
Dear Murray,
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
1.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1A 2AH
CR410 September 1981
But 3 weeks CRM19.
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1 : SEP 1981
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You discussed this question with Mr Ridley before you returned to Hong Kong. Mr Ridley has mentioned the question to the Secretary of State and has asked that we prepare a submission on the subject so that it can be fully considered before his visit to Hong Kong in November.
2.
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EQ49/10
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As you know, Mr Ridley fully understands the difficult balance of arguments on this question as they affect Hong Kong. In particular, he realises the difficulty of a reversion to the exercise of the death penalty after so long an interval and the fact that at the moment the matter is not a hot issue in Hong Kong. However, he sees the problem as more likely to come to a head from the other direction, ie if a capital case in one of the other territories produced the prospect of an imminent execution. In that case it would be likely that HMG would be asked why sentences were commuted in Hong Kong with an eye to parliamentary opinion in the United Kingdom, whereas the law was allowed to take its course elsewhere. That would be hard to justify.
3.
Mr Ridley and you agreed that we should establish whether there was a constitutional difference between Hong Kong and the other Dependent Territories which retain capital punishment
We but which have elected rather than appointed legislatures. have consulted Tony Rushford on this. His view is that there is no direct constitutional difference and that, strictly speaking, the situation in Hong Kong is anomalous. Looked at from that angle it should be resolved either by changing the law or by
On the other allowing the law to operate normally in Hong Kong. hand he sees political and practical reasons why this should not necessarily be done:
'The fact that there are no elected members in the Legislative Council to represent those inhabitants exposes HMG to strong outside pressure in respect of Hong Kong to impose their own measures regardless of local sentiment than would be the case in other colonies with their own elected legislative bodies.
In other words one could say that as the Secretary of State has in practice wider effective powers over Hong Kong than over other colonies, he
CONIFDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
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