A RULING by the United Kingdom Privy Council on Monday, striking down the mandatory death sentences imposed on murder convicts in the Eastern Caribbean and Belize, will also have implications for the imposition of death sentences in Jamaica.
The Privy Council found on Monday that the death sentence was in breach of the countries' respective constitutions.
There are several murder cases from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands which are on appeal before the Privy Council but have not been decided.
A new release from the English law firm Simons Muirhead and Burton said that Lord Bingham, in delivering the unanimous landmark judgment, said "in a crime of this kind there may well be matters relating both to the offence and the offender which ought properly to be considered before sentence is passed.
"To deny the offender the opportunity, before sentence is passed, to seek to persuade the court that in all the circumstances to condemn him to death would be disproportionate and inappropriate is to treat him as no human being should be treated and thus to deny his basic humanity".
In explaining the ruling, Saul Lehrfreund, Human Rights lawyer at Simons Murihead and Burton said "the ramifications and consequences of the Privy Council's ruling are huge; there are implications for all those on death row in seven countries and their cases will now have to be reviewed.
"The implications for future murder trials will be the introduction of a completely new set of procedures restricting the imposition of the death penalty in the first instance.
"By upholding the decision of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal, the Privy Council have gone some way towards ensuring that the law and practice in a number of countries in the Caribbean conforms with international human rights standards in the application of the death penalty."
The countries directly affected by the Privy Council's decision are Belize, St. Christopher and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, St. Vincent , Grenada and Dominica.
