In May, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council...

In May, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council refused to grant petitioners, Nankissoon Boodram, also called Dole Chadee, and 8 others, special leave to appeal the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago on May 16, 1999, upholding the dismissal by Justice Smith of their applications for a stay of execution pending the hearing of a constitutional motion by another condemned prisoner, Mr Fitzgerald, on behalf of all those sentenced to death, whereby it was alleged that hanging constituted cruel and unusual punishment. He had submitted that hanging constituted cruel and unusual punishment and was, therefore, contrary to the Bill of Rights 1689 and the common law. The Privy Council said hanging was the only method of execution of a sentence of death which might lawfully be carried out in Trinidad and Tobago and it had been suggested that it had not been shown that hanging was carried out in the way which was the least painful for the person being hanged, but there had been nothing in the evidence to show that there was a defect in the procedure, apart from the problems which were inherent in any form of execution by those means.