Boyce v R

Boyce v R is a 2004 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) case which upheld the law that sets out a mandatory sentence of death for murder in Barbados.

Boyce v R
CourtJudicial Committee of the Privy Council
Full case nameLennox Ricardo Boyce and Jeffrey Joseph, Appellants v The Queen, Respondent
Decided7 July 2004
Citation(s)[2004] UKPC 32, [2005] 1 AC 400, [2004] 3 WLR 786
Case history
Prior action(s)Court of Appeal of Barbados
Case opinions
Lord Hoffman
Keywords
Capital punishment; inhuman or degrading punishment

The JCPC held in some cases, the law that makes capital punishment mandatory for murder will violate the prohibition on "inhuman or degrading punishment" in the Constitution of Barbados. (This principle is consistent with the 2002 JCPC cases of Hughes, Fox, and Reyes.) However, because (1) the Constitution of Barbados disallows itself to act to invalidate laws that existed prior to the enactment of the constitution, and (2) the law in question pre-dated the constitution, the mandatory death provisions of the law could not be invalidated and must be upheld.

In Matthew v S, which was released on the same day, the JCPC applied the same principles to a similar law in Trinidad and Tobago.

Notes


    gollark: When £, € and $ crash, what currency will remain stable? Krist.
    gollark: One day krist will become the most valuable currency in the universe.
    gollark: Anyway, it'll only be accepted if the sending email has `osmarks` in it, for security.
    gollark: Unary.
    gollark: Basically, I email base-1-encoded TCP packets to the server.

    See also
    This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.