Jamaican Government attorneys will vigorously argue for the continuation of the current practice of passing automatic death sentences on capital murder convicts, at tomorrow’s unprecedented convening of nine law lords of the Judicial Committee of the United Kingdom Privy Council.

“No (we aren’t conceding any of the arguments),” said Solicitor-General Michael Hylton, who is representing Jamaica along with Kent Pantry, the director of public prosecutions; Patrick Foster, the director of Litigation in the Office of the Attorney-General; and Dr Stephen Vasciannie.

Hylton’s stance surprised some defence lawyers who found it to be incompatible with his earlier concession in the case of then juvenile murder convict, Kurt Mollison, whose lawyers convinced the law lords last year that it was unconstitutional to detain juveniles at the Governor-General’s pleasure. This, the lawyers said, offended the principle of the separation of powers, which puts the power of sentencing solely in the discretion of the judiciary.

“I really don’t see how they can do otherwise than concede that the mandatory sentence offends this very same principle in light of what happened in Mollison.” said a senior lawyer who didn’t want to be named. “There, the law lords made it clear that the constitutional right to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial court was breached by the fact that sentencing, which constitutes a part of that hearing, was in effect being carried out by a member of the executive and not the judiciary.”

A final determination of the matter is the expected outcome of the hearing, which will feature presentations by lawyers from both sides of the bars of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, where the issue has been the subject of controversy for the past couple of years.

Hylton told the Sunday Observer he had prepared a two-hour presentation to rebut the arguments against the unconstitutionality of the mandatory death sentence which were rejected by all the local appellate court judges who had a say in the matter, except Henderson Downer, who recently retired.

However, Hylton added that he wasn’t sure if he’d get a chance to present his argument in its entirety, as this was dependent upon the reaction of the law lords.

“In practice, you rarely get to say what you have prepared (as) the (law lords) start asking questions very early,” he said.

If the law lords rule against the government, Hylton said that the course of action would be clear.

“The law would have to be amended to comply with the ruling and all future capital murder convicts would not be automatically sentenced to death,” he said. “Those already convicted would have their sentences reconsidered, based on any guidelines the Privy Council gives.”