Law Weblog

Mandatory death penalty in Jamaica unlawful, says Privy Council

A nine-judge Judicial Committee of the Privy Council yesterday abolished the mandatory death penalty in Jamaica. The Committee, headed by Lord Bingham, included Lords Steyn, Rodger, Hope, Hoffmann, Nicholls, Walker and Scott, and a senior judge from Jamaica, Edward Zacca. The ruling affects over 60 prisoners on death row. Normally the committee sits as a panel of five. The mandatory penalty will remain in Trinidad and Barbados because the same judges, by a majority of five to four, ruled that the clear wording of the constitutions in Trinidad and Barbados prevented them from striking it down. Three leading English QCs, Nicholas Blake, Edward Fitzgerald and Keir Starmer, argued the cases for the prisoners, free of charge. Although the mandatory death penalty has abolished courts are still free to impose it, if appropriate.

It is thought this is the first time the Privy Council has sat as a committee of nine.