the Jamaican Senate passed far reaching legislative amendments...

the Jamaican Senate passed far reaching legislative amendments, ending the mandatory death sentence for capital murder.  
The amendments gave judges the option to sentence a convicted murderer to life in prison or to impose the death penalty.
The amendments also increased the time a convicted murderer must serve before being eligible for parole from seven years to a minimum of 20 years. These changes were to be applicable to murder convicts already on death row.
However, government senators made it clear that the amended law did not signify that the administration was backing off from its intention to hang convicted killers.
The changes were triggered by a recent Privy Council ruling that the conviction of Lambert Watson to death was "an inhuman punishment" under Section 17 of the Jamaican Constitution and was therefore unconstitutional.
Watson, who was convicted of the 1997 murders of his common-law wife and their daughter, appealed his death sentence to the British Privy Council, the country's highest court.  The Privy Council ruled that while the death penalty was not prohibited in Jamaica, the automatic death sentence for capital murder was unconstitutional.