The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

ATTORNEY General Allyson Maynard-Gibson yesterday said while The Bahamas is “obliged” to enforce the death penalty in accordance to law, the removal of the London-based Privy Council would require “serious consideration” and “extensive consultation” with the Bahamian people. 

Mrs Maynard-Gibson, speaking with students at the Eugene Dupuch Law School, suggested that while the country has an unfettered obligation to execute capital punishment as per the laws “on the books”, the abandonment of the Privy Council - whose views have made it harder for hangings to be carried out in this country, is a decision that “no politician, no member of parliament should take on their own”. 

She also said it is “challenging” to define “the worst of the worst” as related to criminal matters, citing the Privy Council’s previous stance on whether convicted persons should receive the death penalty. 

The enforcement of capital punishment and the abandonment of the Privy Council as this country’s highest court would seemingly go hand in hand, as it is the Privy Council that has served as an obstacle to The Bahamas carrying out the death penalty after declaring in 2006 that the country’s mandatory death penalty upon a murder conviction was unconstitutional. 

In June 2011, the high court overturned Maxo Tido’s death sentence in connection with the killing of 16-year-old Donnell Connover, whose body was found off Cowpen Road, battered and bruised and her skull crushed. There was additional evidence that parts of her body were burned after her death. 

But the Privy Council concluded that the murder was not an example of the “worst of the worst”. 

Last week, retired Justice Neville Smith, QC called for the country to abandon the London-based Privy Council and establish its own final court of appeal. 

Justice Smith said the country should not allow itself to become a “hostage” to the Privy Council, arguing that the country would be much better served utilising a two-tiered court system minus the Privy Council, with the Court of Appeal serving in its place. Justice Smith suggested that a five-judge panel could be utilised for “more complex appeals”.

“I think that is something that cannot be done lightly; it’s something that requires serious consideration and most importantly extensive consultation with the Bahamian people,” Mrs Maynard-Gibson said yesterday. “The system of justice is here to serve our people, and that’s a decision that no politician, no member of parliament, should take on their own.” 

Regarding capital punishment, Chief Justice Sir Hartman Longley said last month it would take a massacre similar to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris for the death penalty to be imposed in The Bahamas. The attacks Sir Hartman referred to, which took place a year ago, resulted in the death of 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo when gunmen burst in and opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles. 

That prompted some, like Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller, to label Sir Hartman’s line of thinking as “utterly ridiculous and stupid”; the firebrand MP also questioned “what world” Sir Hartman lives in. Democratic National Alliance leader Branville McCartney also asked “how many more must die” through violence before lawmakers do what is necessary to protect the public and carry out capital punishment. 

“Undoubtedly this is a real challenge,” Mrs Maynard-Gibson said. “What I want to say is capital punishment is on the books of our country; it is a law of the land. When I had to go and defend our human rights record in Geneva in 2012, and I was under severe attack for us still having capital punishment on our books, I pointed out to those countries that were attacking the Bahamas, that every single one of those countries, bar none, has capital punishment on their books. 

“Think about the United States of America. Acts of terrorism, what’s the punishment? Do I need to go on? It’s on our books. Now it is challenging to define the worst of the worst. What we have to do, in my view, is keep pushing, keep pushing. Because it’s easy for things to collapse when after a conviction or an appeal has been filed, it gets thrown back some place.”

She added: “We define law by making sure it gets before the courts and we give the courts an opportunity to make decisions and we respond to those decisions.” 

In November 2011, parliament passed legislation to define the types of murder constituting the “worst of the worst” guidelines set out by the High Court. 

Despite this, Sean McWeeney, QC, chairman of the Constitutional Reform Commission, doubted whether the changes will matter to the Privy Council. 

Speaking on the matter in April 2013 in response to a question raised at the commission’s first town hall meeting, Mr McWeeney said that “as long as the Privy Council remains your final court of appeal, it is extremely doubtful that you will ever be able to hang anyone”.

The last person executed in The Bahamas was David Mitchell in January 2000.