By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE JUDICIAL Committee of the Privy Council in the United Kingdom will start hearing a consolidated appeal today to put an end to the long debate in Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, over the constitutionality of the mandatory death sentence.
It had been customary for five or seven members of the Privy Council to hear appeals but because of the importance of the issue, a nine-member panel has been selected. The Rt. Hon. Edward Zacca, a retired Chief Justice of Jamaica and a Privy Counsellor, and former Chief Justice Floisac, of the Eastern Caribbean Court, will sit on the panel.
Two of the four appeal cases are from Jamaica, one is from Trinidad and Tobago, and the other is from Barbados. The cases have been consolidated because the grounds are similar. The Privy Council will decide whether the death sentence is mandatory or discretionary.
The two appellants from Jamaica are Lambert Watson and Dale Boxx. They had challenged the mandatory death sentence but the Jamaican Court of Appeal dismissed their appeals last year and held that the death sentence was not unconstitutional.
Mr. Justice Henderson Downer (now retired) gave a dissenting judgment in the Boxx case. He ruled as well in the case of Shabbadine Peart, that the death sentence was unconstitutional. Also, he said in his judgments that the death sentence was discretionary and murder convicts were entitled to make mitigation pleas.
The last death sentences to be carried out in Jamaica took place in February 1988 when two men were hanged on the gallows of the St. Catherine District Prison, Spanish Town, central St. Catherine.
The lawyers representing the Jamaican appellants will be relying on Justice Downer's dissenting judgments in their appeal.
Kent Pantry, Q.C., Director of Public Prosecutions, and Michael Hylton, Q.C., Solicitor General, will be putting forward the opposing arguments on behalf of the Government.
