UK's Colonial-Era Privy Council to Rule in Trinidad and Tobago Prisoner's Death Row Case

A panel of five judges in London as part of the U.K.’s judicial committee of the privy council, JCPC, will decide the fate of a prisoner from Trinidad and Tobago on whether he is mentally challenged or not on Tuesday.

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Jay Chandler who has been held captive at the Golden Grove Prison, Arouca, Trinidad and Tobago, was sentenced to death for the murder of his fellow prisoner in 2011 by a 12-member jury. Chander was accused of stabbing Kern Phillip with a homemade knife on October 8, 2004, following an altercation.  

The news comes amid reports of the rise in murder rates plaguing the Caribbean territory. In 2017, 494 people were murdered in the Commonwealth state, which has not hanged anyone since 1999. 

According to Trinidad and Tobago's Attorney General Faris Al Rawi, 11 of the 33 persons on death row have had the Pratt and Morgan rule applied to their cases.

Per the Pratt and Morgan rule which came into existence through a 1993 landmark case involving two prisoners, Pratt and Morgan v. Jamaica in the privy council, it would be considered inhumane and illegal to keep a prisoner on death row for over five years after conviction. 

The U.K. abolished the death penalty in 1969, but some of the former British colonies turned Commonwealth nations, including Trinidad and Tobago consider JCPC as their highest court of appeals, still following the archaic capital punishment. 

The Privy Council has however established legal precedents to not go forward with the capital punishment with people who have extremely low IQs and other intellectual disabilities. 

Recently leaked government document to the U.K. National Archives show that in 1970, the U.K. government sent a British gunboat to ensure the dependent countries follow the capital punishment rulings decried by the court. 

Per Chandler's lawyers, there is new forensic evidence that proves he has had psychosis episodes in the recent past. 

Saul Lehrfreund, co-executive director of the Death Penalty Project, based at the London law firm Simons Muirhead and Burton, told the Guardian. 

“This is yet another example of someone being sentenced to death who has never been assessed by mental health experts. Without proper assessments, people who are potentially mentally disabled inevitably slip through the net and it is all too common to find prisoners with severe mental health issues on death row. The mandatory death penalty is of great concern as the judge has no discretion over whether the death penalty should be imposed. Trinidad and Tobago is one of the last countries in the Caribbean to retain this colonial relic, in violation of its international obligations."

The backdrop to this case is the clear prohibition on the execution of individuals with mental disorder under international law. The legal safeguards are there – the problem is with their implementation in practice."