Capital
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CONFIDENTIAL,
HKB 380/1
TROM:
vid Lidington
RECEIVED IN
DATE:
Q 1 AUG 1990
26 July 1990
PS/Mr Garel-Jones
INDCA
c.c.
PS/Lord Caithness PS/Mr Lennox-Boyd PUS
Mr McLaren
Mr Beamish
UND
HKD
WIAD
Legal Advisers Planners PRU
23
Secretary of State
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
132
I have seen Mr Gorham's submission of 23 July and the comments of Mr Lennox-Boyd recorded in Mr Hatfull's note of 25 July.
1.
2.
I agree with Mr Lennox-Boyd. We would be on a hiding to nothing if we sought to tack this measure on to the proposed Criminal Justice Bill. The Home Office would fight it. So would the business managers. The only people who would welcome such a move would be the keen hangers on the Conservative backbenches and their supporters in the tabloid press.
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3. The next parliament is likely at some time to debate capital punishment. My own preference would therefore be to instruct Governors to commute death sentences pending primary legislation in the next parliament · a course which would enable us to deal with Bermuda at the same time as the Caribbean Dependent Territories. This legislation could, I would hope, be debated alongside the next parliament's customary debate on capital punishment in the United Kingdom. The inevitable row would be got over with quickly.
4. If this solution is not attractive then I would support the proposal in paragraph 5 of Mr Hatfull's note to use Orders in Council to abolish capital punishment in the five Caribbean Dependent Territories during this parliament and to undertake to introduce legislation for Bermuda after the next General Election.
DUL
David Lidington Special Adviser
CONFIDENTIAL
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