Privy Council Holds Caribbean Mandatory Death Penalty Is Unconstitutional

On March 11, 2002, Britain’s Privy Council in a unanimous decision affirmed the judgement of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal of April 2, 2002, and held that the mandatory death penalty on defendant Peter Hughes was unconstitutional insofar as it violated the right under section 5 of the Constitution of Saint Lucia not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading punishment. In delivering the judgement, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry observed that under Sec. 178 of the Criminal Code of Saint Lucia, the death sentence of murder was mandatory. Until the rulings of the East Caribbean Court of Appeals and the Privy Council, several Caribbean countries required convicted murders automatically be sentenced to death in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and Belize.