There was a flutter of interest on Christmas Day when, in festive mood, the Society of Black and Asian Lawyers tweeted the following:
“A little bird at the @ukhomeoffice tells us @pritipatel has asked Civil Service to scope a policy paper on the restoration of the death penalty in the #NewYear2021 and the #Tories have the majority to do just that.”
In the past Ms Patel has expressed support for capital punishment. In 2006 she told the Mail on Sunday:
“If you had the ultimate punishment for the murder of policemen and other heinous crimes, I am sure it would act as a deterrent. We must send a clear signal to people that crime doesn’t pay. The punishment must fit the crime and yes, I do support capital punishment.”
In a BBC Question Time programme in 2011 she said:
“I have said this before and I will say it again, I do actually think when we have a criminal justice system that continuously fails in this country and where we have seen murderers, rapists and people who have committed the most abhorrent crimes in society, go into prison and then are released from prison to go out into the community to then re-offend and do the types of crime they have committed again and again.
I think that’s appalling. And actually on that basis alone I would actually support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent, because I do think we do not have enough deterrents in this country for criminals.”
In fact, I’m not sure she has ever “said it again.” In an interview with the Mail on Sunday in 2019, asked about the death penalty she said:
“I have never said I’m an active supporter of it and [what I said] is constantly taken out of context.”
If her apparently contradictory public statements can be reconciled, and perhaps they cannot, her position seems to be that the death penalty should be reintroduced even though she has never actually campaigned for its reintroduction.
However, let us make the unsafe assumption that the Society of Black and Asian Lawyers are correct, and that she has commissioned a “scoping exercise” in the Home Office to advise her on the feasibility of bringing back the gallows. Brexit may have removed one potential obstacle: any moves to reintroduce hanging would have met with objections from Brussels; indeed it would have been unlawful under the EU Fundamental Charter of Human Rights, Article 2 (2) of which of provides:
“No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.”
Happily the team need not waste any time on the knotty problem of the exact status of the Fundamental Charter in UK law, because post-Brexit it has none.
So, aside from the many philosophical objections to the death penalty, what practical problems will Ms Patel’s scoping exercise into the establishment of a post-Brexit bloody code need to address?
The problems, even for a determined government with a sizeable majority, are considerable.
International Law
Leaving the EU has removed one international legal obstacle to the restoration of the death penalty, but restoration would break the United Kingdom’s obligations under two further treaties.
The better known is, of course, the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”), and specifically Protocol 13, Article 1 which provides:
“The death penalty shall be abolished. No one shall be condemned to such penalty or executed.”
Protocol 13 was ratified by the UK in 2003. Unlike the earlier partially abolitionist Protocol 6 (which has also been ratified by the UK), it allows for no exceptions or temporary “derogations” in time of war or national emergency. The prohibition on the death penalty is absolute. It would be possible to “denounce” (leave) the Convention altogether, but short of that, legislation to restore the death penalty would place the UK government in breach of its treaty obligations under the ECHR; it would breach international law.
Even if we left the European Convention, the legal path to bringing back executions would still not be clear. Although the death penalty is not illegal under any general principle of international law, the UK is a signatory to a UN treaty, the “Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, which provides:
“No one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed.”
The Protocol was ratified by the UK in 1999, it contains no “exit” clause and – as with the corresponding ECHR protocol – unless they have made explicit reservations (which the UK has not) – parties are not permitted to derogate from its provisions even during times of war or national emergency. That is not to say withdrawal from the Protocol would be legally impossible, but it would probably have to be accomplished under the provisions of the Vienna Convention. That is beyond the scope of this blog, but it is certainly not straightforward. Another problem for Ms Patel’s hard working team.
Neither the ECHR nor the UN treaty in themselves prevent Parliament reintroducing the death penalty. An Act of Parliament purporting to do so would have effect, and the direct sanctions for breaching international law are pretty feeble. As readers will readily recall, the UK government flirted briefly with what it called a “technical” breach of international law in the 2020 Internal Market Bill, albeit perhaps only as a negotiating ploy. Perhaps it could do so again, and this time mean it?
Perhaps, but restoration of the death penalty could not be dressed up as a “technicality”: it would be a clear and obvious breach of the UK’s treaty obligations. There are strong reasons of self-interest why governments tend to comply with treaties. It is in every country’s interests that once agreed, treaties can be relied upon.
Even President Erdoğan’s Turkey, which has cynically ignored or evaded various rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in specific instances, has nevertheless not gone so far as to restore the death penalty, despite the President himself and his Party publicly supporting such a measure. Restoration would require a change in Turkey’s constitution, but a further and not insignificant deterrent is that it would also involve denunciation of both the ECHR and the UN Protocol. Turkey does not want to be seen as a country that flagrantly ignores international law, and nor would it be a good look for Britain.
Realistically Britain could hope to join Belarus as the only European country with capital punishment only if it were also to join Belarus as the only European country outside the European Convention on Human Rights. Ms Patel might want to ask herself whether Britain should aspire to membership of a club which has Berlarus as the only other member.
International Cooperation
The Christmas Eve Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU – assuming it comes into force – provides another obstacle to restoration. Part 3 of the Agreement sets out an elaborate and detailed framework for cooperation between Britain and the EU on criminal justice and security matters, including such matters as a replacement scheme for the European Arrest Warrant and the exchange of police intelligence, including vehicle details, DNA, finger-prints (“dactyloscopic data”), airline passenger data and so on.
What is in effect a preamble to Part 3 [LAW.GEN 3 (2)], provides:
“Nothing in this Part modifies the obligation to respect fundamental rights and legal principles as reflected, in particular, in the European Convention on Human Rights ….”
Restoring the death penalty would require either ignoring or denouncing the ECHR (or at least its anti-death-penalty Protocols), which would mean no longer “respecting the fundamental rights and legal principles as reflected … in the European Convention ….” That would entitle, and probably require – the EU to suspend its cooperation on criminal justice matters. The Home Office scoping team will want to consider whether the resultant diminution in the ability of the police to trace, capture and extradite an unspecified number of other murderers, terrorists and other serious criminals is a price worth paying in order to hang those who can still be caught without the need for international cooperation.
Northern Ireland
One unintended result of the Brexit negotiations has been to drive Northern Ireland closer to the Republic than it was before. Under the Northern Ireland Protocol the North remains in the Single Market, with unimpeded trade between the North and the South of Ireland (and the rest of the EU), whereas trade and some aspects of travel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are subject to various rules and restrictions. The government considered this a price worth paying to preserve the open Irish border and the delicate settlement of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Woven into the fabric of the Good Friday Agreement, and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 which implemented it, is an understanding, and a law, that the institutions of Northern Ireland, including the Assembly, will not act in a way that is incompatible with the ECHR.
Ms Patel’s team will need to give careful consideration to how the restoration of the death penalty will affect Northern Ireland. Whilst theoretically possible, it is virtually inconceivable that the Westminster Parliament would legislate to reintroduce the death penalty into Northern Ireland. To do so would be the most inflammatory breach of the Agreement that one could possibly imagine. Nowhere in the British Isles has capital punishment had an unhappier and more politically charged history than on the island of Ireland.
But even if its reintroduction was restricted to England and Wales, that would have still have huge ramifications for the Northern Irish settlement. As we have seen, the death penalty could only be lawfully reintroduced once the UK has withdrawn from the European Convention. Such a withdrawal would tear the heart out of the Good Friday Agreement.
One way around that might involve somehow deeming that the Convention, or at least the rights recognised in the Convention, would continue to apply to Northern Ireland but not in England and Wales. Even if that were to be accepted by the people of Northern Ireland, the result would be to separate the province yet further from the rest of Britain, and to bring it constitutionally still closer to the Republic.
Another unwanted consequence is that it might provide a bonus for fleeing criminals. How would the Courts of Northern Ireland, still applying the law of the European Convention, deal with a request to prevent the return of a suspected murderer – perhaps a terrorist from a rogue or resurgent IRA – back to England? To be compliant with the Convention right not to be executed the Northern Ireland courts could not do so without an assurance from the UK government. It would be a bizarre situation in which one part of a sovereign country refused to hand over criminal suspects to another, or in which fleeing to another part of the country resulted in a murderer receiving more lenient treatment.
Scotland
Many of the problems that apply to Northern Ireland would apply with equal force to Scotland. Criminal justice is a matter within the competence of the Scottish Parliament, and there could be no serious question of Westminster legislating to reintroduce the death penalty into Scottish law.
Even if Ms Patel limited her ambition to restore the death penalty to England and Wales (and the Welsh, like the Irish and the Scots might have something to say about that), she could not lawfully do so without withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights. That might be politically possible, and even quite popular in England.
The position in Scotland would be very different. As with Northern Ireland, compliance with Convention rights is woven into the Scottish devolution settlement. A move by the United Kingdom government to leave the ECHR in order to introduce the death penalty in England would meet with a distinctly cool reception north of the border. Under what is known as the “Sewel Convention” the Westminster Parliament will not normally legislate on devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. The Convention would certainly be engaged either by an Act of Parliament to repeal the Human Rights Act (which incorporates the ECHR into domestic law), or by an Act to take Britain out of the ECHR altogether, and it is impossible to imagine that any currently foreseeable Scottish Parliament would ever give its consent. That would not in fact create a legal obstacle as the Sewel Convention has no legal force (see Miller (No. 1) [2017] UKSC 5), but it is hard to imagine many things that would provide a more powerful argument for advocates of Scottish independence than an Act to remove human rights from Scottish law, against the wishes of the Scottish Parliament, particularly so if the main point of the exercise was to allow English courts to hang people.
Executioners
But let us suppose that somehow the objections of the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh were overcome, that Ms Patel withdrew the UK from the treaties banning the death penalty and found herself, at last, in a position to restore the gallows to its traditional place at the apex of English criminal law. Any method of execution other than hanging might be more cruel and it would certainly be less British. The two last surviving British hangmen sadly both passed away in 1992, but let us further suppose that Ms Patel was able to train up some hangmen (and hangwomen too because a modern profession would need to demonstrate more diversity than was traditionally the case), perhaps drawing upon the considerable expertise still existing in our former colonies in Singapore or Pakistan: given the nationwide shortage of trained executioners in this country an Australian-style points based system would ensure at least temporary entry without impediment to anyone suitably qualified. 
Who would then be hanged? Just murderers or perhaps some rapists and drug smugglers too? To start with it would probably be overly ambitious to extend the death penalty to non-murderers, although we could perhaps learn from China and various South East Asian and Middle-Eastern countries where crimes as diverse as drug smuggling, corruption and blasphemy are deterred by the existence of the death penalty.
Given the liberal attitudes of many judges, Ms Patel is unlikely to want to hand too much discretion to sentencers, so as in the past the death penalty would have to be mandatory in at least some cases. For those worried about potential miscarriages of justice Ms Patel has herself suggested an additional protection against hanging the wrong people: the death penalty should only be imposed where “you have ultimate burden of proof.” These are ordinary English words which can be inserted into the relevant statute. What they actually mean can be left to the good sense of jurors.
I think at this point the Home Office scoping exercise would have run its course. Whether, as in China, the organs of executed criminals should be sold to those in need of transplants would be a matter for the Department of Health.
The whole arguement is flawed from the outset – that the death penalty is a deterrent. I’m not aware of any study which finds this to be true. We can look to the statistics in the US, one of the most deathly regimes in the west.
If what concerns Ms Patel is actually recidivism, then perhaps she would do better to look at the Swedish example.
Exactly, logically what sort of person would be thinking I’ll do the murder as it’s only 20 or 30 years in prison, but as there is the death penalty I won’t risk it. Nobody thinks like that, people either don’t think of the consequences due to pure rage, mental illness or drug use. Or they simply don’t think they will get caught. Patel is clearly unfit to be home secretary if she holds views that do not correlate with common sense. And yes, you are right look to the Nordic countries. We need to focus on reducing crime, not on vengeance. It’s not being tough on crime to implement policies that make crime increase.
I’m sure I read a report somewhere a few years ago where the conclusion was that when the death sentence was present the perpetrators were basically far more prepared to fight their way out, kill witnesses, police etc. Nothing to lose after all.
This is an interesting comment. I would actually broaden the discussion.
One the whole the criminal justice system can be understood to have three, or perhaps four or five, objectives:
1. Protection of society against the criminal and his crimes
2. Rehabilitation of the criminal
3. Deterrence against future criminal activity
And in societies that tend to be transactional in their approach to relations between citizens
4. Restitution, indemnification, compensation (the correct term to be selected based on the nature of the crime) for the victim of the crime
And finally the most base of objectives, where the mindset of the lawmaker and society really shines:
5. Revenge
Although I had difficulty coming to terms with the observation when I studied Criminal Law in my native country of the Netherlands, my teachers were able to convince me of the complete and utter failure of the third objective: that of deterrence. They were a progressive lot, but – should say “and” – I now do think they were completely right.
It sounds like an obvious thing, but time and again studies have proven that deterrence is simply not working. There are far too many, far too difficult and far too varied reasons, societal, psychological, psychiatrical (if that’s a word), economical, that bring or even compel people to commit crimes. And therefore I think using deterrence is a fig leaf for what I think is really going on: the wish for revenge.
Perhaps Ms Patel’s family’s place of origin has influenced her thinking in this regard. Or perhaps not. All I can say is that revenge doesn’t right a(ny) wrongs; it just adds to them.
You will have guessed where I stand: go for protection and/or rehabilitation, and if you must, and add a little compensation to the mix. It is difficult enough already to properly weigh and balance the various interests of those affected by crime based on these. Don’t, ever, add irreversible measures to the mix, and be a better person than to want revenge. You might after all be wrong yourself.
Actually from a statistical basis states with capital punishment have lower per capita violent crime and murder rates then states without it. The problem in America is less than then the rampant use of guns which lead to violence, and various abuses the justice system has caused.
Obviously more statistical data should be examined, but its not actually as abhorrent to the general public as commentators seem to suggest.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it should be reintroduced in the uk and frankly it won’t be, but your argument isn’t particularly strong.
This if course only covers the situation up to the point where The Death Penalty is reinstated.
The first question that arises is what would the Judges, indeed the whole legal profession and of course The Prison Service do.
If you go back to 1900 when The Death Penalty was well established an unremarkable, the vast majority of Judges and Lawyers only ever did one such trial as they could not stand the stress of it.
Possibly the first question might be would the Judges hear these cases or might they resign en masse? Would prosecutors want to work on a potential death penalty case?
How might Jurors react? Would they refuse to hear capital cases or acquit, even in the most clear cut cases.
Then there is the Home Office, would Civil Servants want to work in it any more, in particular if there posts involved the Death Penalty? It was suggested that until some time after abolition that the Home Office was a bit of a strange place because if its role in organising and overseeing executions.
The last time when there was a real possibility of reintroduction of The Death Penalty – Thatcher walked into the No lobby taking the majority of The Conservative Party with her, the Prison Governors threatened to resign en masse if the Death Penalty was reinstated.
What about the impact on those who have to carry out the executions? In New Zealand, which had very few executions, just prior to abolition a very ‘pro death penalty’ Government had to postpone several executions due to the impact it had on staff who had to organise them. You could I suppose have an ‘Execution Centre’ staffed by – well, psychopaths but there may well even be some reaction by them faced with actually having to take someone out and kill them.
Then of course there is the problem that the US faced when the death penalty was reintroduced that the staff who had carried out executions had died or retired and they had to train new execution staff from scratch.
Finally there is an interesting comment that a friend of mine, old enough to remember when The Death Penalty was still in use in the UK which was that it coarsened society, I can just imagine how the pro & anti sides might react to the prospect of an execution, and of course it could be the spark for Civil Unrest, especially if a member of a Minority Community were to be executed.
And thats just for starters
The evidence from the US for a deterrence effect is quite ambiguous: studies show positive and negative effects with the differences hinging on subtle statistical assumptions . Given that, killing someone is hardly justified.
I can’t believe the “Bully” Patel wants to bring in state Murder as a deterrent?? It’s not a deterrent in the USA for example as their are thousands awaiting execution hurried along in the Federal prisons by President Trump. It is so flawed that one innocent death is too many. Try watching the Documentary “14 days in May” of a black 18 year old at the time of a Murder he was convicted of doing. No forensics & the lady who I’d him at first said I know Edward Earl Johnson & it’s not him. He protested his innocence up until they took him to the gas chamber where guards & a BBC crew doubted he killed and raped an elderly lady. Sir Clive Stafford smith was his lawyer & first death penalty case. There was zero evidence except a coerced roadside statement the 18 year old was told to write or they’d say he tried to escape & would shoot him on the way to the police station. More evidence it was flawed came in after he was executed.
I think during Covid for pritti Patel to bring more death to the table is sick & she should be seen for the bully she really is & sacked.
I am ambivalent about the death penalty. With a heavy heart I would vote against it because of the incompetence and corruption within the criminal justice system. Innocent people would receive the death penalty, and of that I have no doubt at all.
Patel is part of the problem, focus on punishment and specifically prison as opposed to rehabilitation increases the likliehood of re-offending and thus creates more victims. She needs to take responsibility for actions, and realise words, actions and inaction are creating more crime.
I can’t see the death sentence ever being reintroduced, but then again I don’t think the politicians calling to leave the EU really thought it was a good idea or that it would ever happen. That’s the problem with the likes of Patel – they try to appeal to certain voters and manipulate them without any regard of the possible consequences.
Although I’m against the death sentence, I imagine that if I had a life sentence in one of our prisons I would actually prefer the death sentence or at least given that option.
For me the most depressing part of that (instructive) 2011 exchange was the fact that Patel didn’t seem to be able to stick to a single argument in favour of the death penalty even when she was advocating it – or even acknowledge that there is a difference between deterring potential offenders and preventing convicted offenders from reoffending (by killing them). Our Home Secretary!
You can always count on the less moderate Tories to be tough on crime, lenient on the causes of crime.
Anybody in favour of capital punishment should be prepared for, and have no issues with, their child / spouse / parent being put to death for a crime they didn’t commit. Else they should wind their neck in. An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind.
There’s no point in a death penalty because jurors would simply break their oaths and deliver not guilty verdicts on people they believe to be guilty.
Most people won’t be aware of the possibility of a perverse verdict.
Not sure which parallel universe you all been living in, but in reality g-men rape, steal murder and torture people already with impunity. Fact is if those sickos do actually manage to take me alive again I’d probably go all out to kill one of more if it did mean death sentence….far preferable than being tortured for maybe up to the next fifty years or so! But I doubt even then I’ll be able to get a court date….
The case for the return of a Labour Government in 1964 for me, in the year that I left Secondary school and started work, was overwhelmingly a social reform case. After 13 years of Conservative government Britain had made little or no progress towards the liberalisation goals that I and many of my generation believed. These included decriminalising homosexuality, giving women choice on abortion and above all stopping judicial executions.
Two cases stood out for me and it still makes me shudder to think of them. The miscarriage of justice in the case of Timothy Evans was one and the execution of Ruth Ellis was the other. The cases were different but although I was only a teenager I read all I could on the subject of Capital Punishment and swore to myself that I would vigorously oppose it , which I did.
Roy Jenkins had many honourable campaign ribbons in his distinguished political life but being not only the first Home Secretary to oppose Hanging but actually being the one to lead its abolition is for me the greatest achievement. I’m sure that though there were a few attempts to restore the death penalty later we all assumed the matter was decided. At least in Europe if not, sadly, elsewhere.
Bring the death penalty back. There should be no wrongful sentence these days with modern advancements in DNA. All you misguided tree huggers think it’s all about deterrent. Just think of all the money which could be saved, by not having to keep these murderers that are no use, to society.
I don’t like to resort to cheap shots but I have the impression that Priti Patel has her eye on the main chance, which in this case is nothing more than dog-whistle appeals to the lowest common denominator, namely appearing to be “tough on crime” when she knows that capital punishment enjoys the support of a majority of the English electorate. I say nothing here about Scottish law, which I always thought was independent of English law (actually it seems I have said something about Scottish law, but that’s enough of that).
I like to remember the case of the “Birmingham six” on occasions like this. Had Priti Patel at that time been in her present position, and had she had her way at the time they were originally convicted, I’m pretty sure they would all be dead by now, and the state, acting in the name of the people, moreover aided and abetted by the police, would have become not only a murderer, but also a serial killer.
I am in favour of bringing back the death sentence for murder where the evidence is beyond argument I.e. dna, finger prints etc. If my granddaughter, for instance, was raped and murdered and it could be proved beyond doubt who had done it, I wouldn’t want the murderer to live and be sustained in prison at my expense however small my contribution.
Definitely bring back the death penalty for murder.
Yes it should be brought pack for certain crimes , such as child killers .
I’m no lawyer but is it not true that guilt in criminal cases has to be proved beyond “reasonable doubt”? A couple of comments here seem to call for a different standard as far as capital cases are concerned, namely when there is “no doubt at all,” or words to that effect. I’m wondering how you might effectively establish a total absence of any doubt. I suspect it would be difficult to do in real life.
There is enough evidence to prosecute those who kill thy should be hanged life for a life especially for these child killers
I am an advocate of bringing back the death penalty for those who commit murder. I know the reason for its abolishment was that there were people who were falsely convicted and hanged on little or no evidence and I have no wish for this period to return. However I do believe it is a deterrent, up to the abolishment in the 1960s the death rate of children was about 300 per year that figure was supposed to reduce with the abolishment and the removal of parental punishment of children. However the do-gooders have got it wrong again and the current figures of child deaths is now 800 per year mainly at the hands of parents and children who don’t understand or don’t care what there are doing. We have many victims’ families and supporting people shouting “How can this keep happening and why doesn’t the Government do anything about it” the simple answer the do-gooders won’t let them do anything that is controversial which is why our country is in such a mess.
I support hanging for murders and child killers pedophiles convicted jihadist .
sick of paying to keep these people in prison
Get them through the trapdoor. Ask questions later!
A good article, however I am not sure why the word ‘sadly’ was used in ‘The two last surviving British hangmen sadly both passed away in 1992’.