Lords ruling may save Death Row prisoners
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Hundreds of Death Row prisoners may escape execution after the Law Lords ruled yesterday that it was unlawful for a judge to impose the death penalty in seven Caribbean countries.
The apparent reprieves follow the successful appeals of three convicted murderers who were being denied the rights of "basic humanity", according to a Privy Council ruling.
Human rights groups welcomed the Law Lords' unanimous decision. Lawyers believe the ruling could have a knock-on effect in other countries in the region.
The five Law Lords sitting on the Privy Council, the final court of appeal for many Commonwealth countries, ruled against a judge's right to hand down an automatic death sentence.
It said convicted killers should have the right to address a jury, give evidence and call witnesses to testify before they are sentenced. The Privy Council ruled the death penalty should be decided by a jury not a judge.
Lord Bingham of Cornhill, said denying the prisoner that right was "to treat him as no human being should be treated and thus to deny his basic humanity".
The decision confirms a similar ruling by the East Caribbean Court of Appeals in 2001. Before that, convicted murderers could automatically be sentenced to death by a judge in St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and Belize.
The first of the three appeals was made by Berthill Fox, a former Mr Universe, who was convicted in May 1998 of killing his fiancee and her mother in St Kitts and Nevis.
Peter Hughes was also appealing over his death sentence for murdering Jason Jean in 1993 in St Lucia and the third case involved Patrick Reyes, who shot a neighbour and his wife over a border dispute. He then turned the gun on himself but survived.
Yesterday's ruling is likely to increase the resolve of 10 Caribbean countries to form a regional supreme court and scrap their 170-year relationship with the Privy Council, which they accuse of hindering efforts to enforce the penalty.
Although some countries have gone nearly a decade without an execution others reintroduced hangings, arguing they serve as a deterrent to increasing violent crime. Countries such as the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago have carried out recent hangings.