TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: PRIVY COUNCIL QUASHES MANDATORY DEATH FOR CERTAIN MURDERS

June 14, 2011: the mandatory death sentence for murder in Trinidad & Tobago was again overturned by the Privy Council, who quashed the death sentence of Nimrod Miguel, ruling it "unconstitutional". The ruling is likely to affect most Death Row inmates who were convicted under similar circumstances. On January 30, 2008, Miguel was sentenced for the murder of Ramesh Lalchan, whose body was found on December 31, 2003, in Rio Claro. Miguel and three other men had hijacked Lalchan, a taxi-driver, in Princes Town and Lalchan was robbed, bound, shot and dumped. On December 31, 2003, Lalchan was found shot dead in a canefield in Rio Claro.
Miguel claimed he walked away before Lalchan was shot twice in the head. Miguel appealed to the local Court of Appeal on February 27, 2009, but his appeal was dismissed.
The Law Lords pointed out that while the felony murder rule, at common law, had formed part of the law of Trinidad and Tobago for many years, this was abolished in 1996 and a distinction was drawn between felonies and misdemeanors, and as a result no one could be convicted of felony murder or sentence to death for such offences.
However, in 1997, the Criminal Law Act was amended and made death by the hangman’s noose mandatory for persons convicted of killing a person during the commission of an arrestable offence.
In Miguel’s judgment, Lord Clarke ruled that they were unable to accept the State’s submissions, adding that the 1997 Act did not repeal the common law rule, as it had already been repealed.
“It simply enacted a new provision which was no doubt intended to reproduce something very similar to the common law rule.”
Clarke also noted that any attempt to reinstate a repealed law, which was inconsistent with Sections of the Constitution as it relates to invalidate an existing law, can only be done by votes of no less than three-fifths of each Houses of Parliament. (Sources: Trinidad Express, 15/06/2011)