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Item 4 Corporal and Capital punishment: human rights
12. Mrs Britton observed that WIAD had issued letters to Governors reminding them that DTs which retained judicial corporal punishment were likely to be found in breach of three international human rights conventions. Mr January reported that the Deputy Governor of BVI was due to present a paper to Exco on this subject next week. He was not optimistic about receiving a sympathetic hearing though since the Deputy Chief Minister had little time for the human rights lobby and there was anyway a general will throughout the DT to keep judicial corporal punishment as an ultimate deterrent. Mrs Britton continued that in Hong Kong a review of judicial corporal punishment had recommended its abolition. Work was now in hand to repeal the relevant legislation. It was HMG's responsibility to continue to press for abolition in the other DTs.
13. Mrs Britton observed that corporal punishment in schools was currently not a prominent issue as far as the international. human rights conventions were concerned. Mr Waterworth pointed out that recent TCI legislation had restricted the employment of corporal
punishment in schools. We should bear in mind our obligations on this matter under the European Convention on Human Rights. Mr Moody reported that SED had a few weeks ago received a parliamentary question concerning the illegality of homosexuality in Gibraltar. Mr Waterworth observed that we should encounter widespread local opposition if we sought to legalise homosexuality in the Caribbean. DTS. Mrs Britton noted that the legalisation of homosexuality was
not on issue raised by the Human Rights Committee in its examination
of the Second Report on the DTs. So long as we did nnot draw it to
the Committee's attention, they were unlikely to raise it.
If they
ว did we could probably fall back on the Covenant's public morality
clauses.
14. On the capital punishment question, Mr January outlined recent
developments in Bermuda. Shorter's sentence had been commuted.
However there were three murder cases pending, each with a high
premeditation level. A referendum bill had been agreed both by
Cabinet and by the Legislature and a referendum was likely to take
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