Kingston, Jamaica: Prime Minister P

Kingston, Jamaica: Prime Minister P.J. Patterson says it is possible that legislators will be recalled from their summer recess to debate issues relating to the death penalty in Jamaica.
"Only recently a nine member panel of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council gave its decision on the constitutionality of the mandatory death penalty . we will have to deal with the consequences of that decision very soon and the House is likely to be recalled to sit in September," Patterson told legislators.
Patterson told parliament that the matter was urgent and warranted immediate attention.
Earlier in the month, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados successfully challenged a ruling issued in 2003 by the London-based Privy Council that their mandatory death sentence was unconstitutional.
But the Law lords ruled that the use of the mandatory death sentence in Jamaica was illegal.
The Privy Council found that the 1992 Offences Against the Person Act, which introduced the mandatory death sentence for capital murder was inconsistent with section 17(1) of the Jamaica constitution.
According to the Law Lords, any death sentence passed since the act was introduced in 1992 must be held to be illegal.
The judgement means that all those sentenced to death since 1992 would have their case returned to the Supreme Court for sentencing.