TNAG-2084-FCO40-2969-Death-penalty-in-Hong-Kong-1990 — Page 72

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DRAFT MINUTE

FROM: SECRETARY OF STATE

TO:

Lord President of the Council

CC:

Home Secretary

Chief Whip

DEPENDENT TERRITORIES:

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

1. It is an embarrassing anomaly that although we have abolished the death penalty for murder in the UK it remains on the statute

books of seven of our Dependent Territories: the five Caribbean Dependent Territories, Bermuda, and Hong Kong. There is no capital punishment for murder in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and St

Helena. In the Caribbean, most countries retain capital punishment

for murder. Prisoners are sentenced to death but executions have

not been carried out in the majority of cases and hence, in independent countries, large numbers of prisoners have been kept for

many years on death row. Faced with cases in our own DTs where

Governors are frequently under considerable pressure to allow the

law to take its course, I have come to the conclusion that capital

punishment for murder there must be abolished. This difference in

arrangements for the UK and some of our Dependent Territories, on

the one hand, and for the Caribbean Dependencies and Bermuda and

Hong Kong, on the other, could expose us to criticism on racial

grounds.

2. In the Caribbean DTs and Bermuda, judicial appeals are made from the local Supreme Courts to the local Courts of Appeal, and ultimately to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Thereafter, an appeal for clemency may be made to the Governor, advised by his Mercy Committee. (The Mercy Committee in Bermuda consists of local ministers and representatives of public opinion. In most Caribbean DTS, the Mercy Committee is formed by the

Executive Council ie Ministers and senior officials). The Creech

Jones doctrine, which dates from the 1940s, places the onus of the

ultimate decision on the Governor. The Governor acts in loco

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