75 years’ jail for convicted killers

The ten — Allan Henry, Norbert Williams, Dexter Lendore, Deshan Rampharry, Evans Xavier, Victor Baptiste, Deolal Sukhram, Frazal Amin Khan, Girijadat Siewpersaud and Michael Bullock — were all convicted of murder on varying dates between 1988 to 1993.

The appeal of six of the ten — in which they challenged the constitutional validity of their substituted sentences imposed on them -was used as a test case heard by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which delivered its ruling on Monday.

The inmates’ death sentences were commuted in adherence to the 1994 Jamaican death penalty case of Pratt and Morgan, where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that executing convicted killers five years or more after their conviction, was cruel and unusual punishment.

The inmates’ death sentences were commuted in adherence to the 1994 Jamaican death penalty case of Pratt and Morgan, where the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that executing convicted killers five years or more after their conviction, was cruel and unusual punishment.

The six received sentences of natural life or 75 years’ imprisonment and challenged these decisions in a constitutional claim which was dismissed by then High Court judge Justice Peter Rajkumar who did not agree their commuted sentences were illegal and held that quashing the commutations would have a ripple effect of reinstating their original death sentences.

They appealed Justice Rajkumar’s decision and in a 68-page ruling, appellate court — comprising Justices of Appeal Peter Jamadar, Rajendra Narine and Mark Mohammed - disagreed with several of their contentions, but found that the trial judge erred in his finding that the law at the time of their commutations did not require they be given an opportunity to make representations to the Advisory Committee.

“As such the procedure adopted for the commutation of the appellants’ respective death sentences was in contravention of their right to the protection of the law,” the appellate judges ruled, although they held that the actual commutations by the President were legal and within his Constitutional remit.

According to Justice Mohammed, who delivered the ruling, it was held that the two forms of punishment prescribed by the President had a prospect of ending due to the operation of the prison rules and that, ‘persons sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of their natural lives retain the right to petition the advisory committee for mercy.’ In their ruling, Lords Mance, Kerr, Sumption, Reed and Hughes held that there was no general rule that all reviews must be judicial in response to complaints by the men’s attorneys that the review process was flawed because it was administered by the executive rather than by judicial process.

The men had also argued that the substituted sentenced imposed incarceration without any prospect of ever being released.

But the Law Lords held that there were principles set out in case law for a system of review and pointed out that the Trinidad and Tobago Prison Rules ordain regular reviews of life sentences and 75- year prison terms.

They also noted that a prison was entitled to petition the President for clemency. “The mere fact that the substituted sentences were imposed on groups of prisoners without consideration of their individual circumstances does not by itself mean they are cruel and unusual punishment.

Sentencing by a court is an individual exercise, but the President is exercising a separate power of dispensation. Nor would it follow, even if he were exercising a sentencing function, that to impose the same sentence in multiple cases would necessarily render those sentences cruel and unusual,” the Law Lords held.