Death penalty never abolished in TT

AFTER sitting down for three and a half days, the State’s lawyer Sir Godfrey Le Quesne QC got up yesterday and informed the Law Lords, that contrary to what others may believe, the mandatory death penalty was never abolished in Trinidad and Tobago. Sir Godfrey, who is representing the TT Attorney General in the constitutional motion brought by convicted killer Charles Matthews, said the Privy Council in recent years had twice rejected suggestions that the mandatory sentence of death for murder had been abolished in other jurisdictions. “In 1941, death was the mandatory sentence for murder in the United Kingdom and in every British colony (including Trinidad and Tobago) throughout the world. Why didn’t someone say something about this then?” Sir Godfrey asked.

He pointed out that Matthews’ argument was that section 68 (2) of the Interpretation Act applied to section 4 of the Offences against the Person Act, and therefore, it converted the mandatory sentence of death into a sentence at the unlimited discretion of the judge. “We are submitting that this is wrong. Section 68 (2) was never intended by Parliament to refer to the penalty of murder and never has referred to it,” counsel added. Sir Godfrey continued, “it can hardly be supposed that in one small colony the Governor and legislative council should have decided in the middle of the war to change this inveterate and widely established rule. “It is harder to suppose that such a change, if contemplated at all, would have been carried out not by clear and express terms, but by general words in a statute dealing, according to its short title, with Minimum Penalties and Fines (Removal) and containing no reference to murder or the death penalty.”

Sir Godfrey said there was no intention to change the penalty for murder. He said when the matter was presented by the Attorney General to the legislative council, he concentrated on fines and the desirability of leaving the courts free to exercise their discretion in imposing them. “He never referred to any change of the law of murder or penalty for murder, which on the appellant’s view, would have been the most conspicuous feature of the (1941) Ordinance.” Sir Godfrey told the Law Lords that no one mentioned the law in any case of murder until there was reference to it in the TT Court of Appeal during the arguments in the Balkissoon Roodal case. He added, “no judge ever sought to apply it, counsel never tried to rely on it, no Attorney General or State lawyer ever thought it was his duty to draw the attention of the court to so momentous a change of the law.”

Sir Godfrey said everyone was concerned with the enactment, application and administration of the Ordinance of 1941, and subsequently with the Interpretation Act. He said they knew the legislature had no intention of affecting Section 4 of the Offences against the Person Act, and no one ever suggested that the legislature had done so inadvertently. Sir Godfrey said the language in section 68 (2) of the Interpretation Act indicates that it was not intended to affect the death penalty. He said it refers to a statute providing for “any fixed penalty or fine as a punishment for a criminal offence.” He said an analysis of the Act showed that section 68 (2) has nothing to do with the sentence of death. “That sentence stands alone. A sentence of imprisonment or a fine can made more or less severe and remain a sentence of imprisonment or a fine. A sentence of death cannot be made more or less severe. It can only be replaced by a sentence of a different type,” he declared.

When the adjournment was taken yesterday, Sir Godfrey was dealing with the TT Constitution. He went through the 1962 constitution which preceded the 1976 constitution, changing the head of state from the Governor General to the President. During this session, he cited three cases from Trinidad to support his submissions. The first was DeFreitas v Benny — De Freitas known by his other name Abdul Malik, and who was executed at the Port-of-Spain State Prison for the murder of English socialite Gale Ann Benson. Then the case of Terrence Thornhill v the Attorney General in which the appellant sought constitutional relief on the refusal by the police to allow him to see his lawyer when he was in custody. The third case was that of Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj v the Attorney General in which the lawyer was jailed for contempt of court in 1975 and fought his case all the way to the Privy Council eventually winning damages for his unlawful jailing. Sir Godfrey will continue his submissions on the constitution when hearing resumes on Monday.