BACKGROUND
1.
The abolition of capital punishment in the UK in 1965 was followed by its de facto abolition in Hong Kong. The last execution there was in November 1966. Although the death penalty remains on the statute book, and Hong Kong courts continue to impose it for serious crimes such as
murder, in practice all such sentences are commuted by the Governor to terms varying between 8 years and life. The decision to commute is the Governor's alone, but he takes ExCo's advice in each case on the length of the prison term.
2. Public opinion in Hong Kong has always been strongly in favour of retaining the death penalty, but the
administrative arrangement described above has come to be regarded as an acceptable way of reconciling the demands of public opinion in Hong Kong and the repeatedly expressed will of the British Parliament, which is ultimately responsible for what happens in Hong Kong, and which supports abolition.
3.
This administrative arrangement has in the past been justified by the fact that Hong Kong did not have an elected legislature through which local public opinion could be incontrovertibly and democratically expressed. The views of the British Parliament therefore carried greater weight. But as LegCo becomes a body of elected rather than appointed members, that argument becomes increasingly untenable.
4.
The only occasion since 1966 on which this arrangement has been seriously challenged so far was in 1973 when a particularly grisly murder so outraged Hong Kong opinion that the Governor felt unable to recommend commutation of
the death sentence. A plea for clemency was addressed to the Secretary of State and was granted on political grounds.
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