The United Kingdom-based Privy Council rules that only Parliament can remove the death penalty as the mandatory sentence for murder. 

In a judgment today 9 Law Lords dismissed a novel constitutional challenge over the death penalty brought by Jay Chandler.

Mr. Chandler was convicted of murdering a fellow remand prisoner in 2004. 

The Privy Council rules that although seemingly in breach of constitutional fundamental rights and protections, the death penalty is not unconstitutional.

The Privy Council also delivered its judgment in a separate case brought by murder accused Naresh Boodram. 

In that matter, the State had challenged the ruling of the Court Of Appeal over whether automatic life sentences should be given to murder convicts, who cannot be executed due to delays in their appeals. 

Mr. Boodram was convicted of murder on 27^th November 1996 and sentenced to death.

In 2007, Mr. Boodram commenced proceedings to have his death sentence quashed and to be resentenced by the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago.

The High Court commuted his sentence to one of life imprisonment, considering that it did not have discretion to resentence him individually, and made no order as to costs.

Mr. Boodram appealed successfully to the Court Of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago, who found that the High Court was not constrained to impose a sentence of life imprisonment.

The Court Of Appeal had ruled those murder convicts, who benefit from the Privy Council’s well-known 1994 ruling in the Jamaican case of Pratt and Morgan.

The Privy Council today dismissed the State’s appeal on the issue as it ruled that the local Court Of Appeal was correct in its reasoning.