(This report covers the period January-December 1997)

About 40 people remained on death row, including three who were sentenced to death during the year, but there were no executions. At least one person was sentenced to corporal punishment.

In elections in March, the Free National Movement party won 34 of the 40 seats in the House of Assembly. Hubert Alexander Ingraham remained as Prime Minister. Sir Lynden Pindling, who served as Prime Minister for 25 years following independence, stepped down as leader of the main opposition party, the Progressive Liberal Party.

In December the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (jcpc) in the United Kingdom, the final court of appeal for the Bahamas, revised its 1996 ruling that executing a prisoner who had spent three and a half years or more under sentence of death would violate the constitutional prohibition against inhuman or degrading punishment (see Amnesty International Report 1997). The jcpc's ruling in December concluded that the guideline period should be extended to five years, in view of the Bahamas Government's undertaking to respect individuals' rights to petition the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

About 40 people remained under sentence of death. They included three men sentenced to death during the year. At least three men who had been imprisoned on death row for more than five years had their sentences commuted

No executions took place during the year. Although dates were set for the execution of four prisoners – John Higgs, Brian Schroeder, Jeronimo Bowleg and Omar Hall – they received stays of execution.

Following a trial at which he did not have a defence lawyer, Cecil Musgrove was sentenced in May to six lashes of the cane and 10 years' imprisonment with hard labour. Corporal punishment was reinstated in the Bahamas in 1991 as a lawful punishment for males convicted of certain offences

Amnesty International wrote to the authorities in May and October, expressing concern about the sentence of caning imposed on Cecil Musgrove

Amnesty International urged the authorities not to execute John Higgs, Brian Schroeder, Jeronimo Bowleg and Omar Hall. In November Amnesty International urged the government to commute all death sentences, including those of prisoners who had spent three and a half years or more on death row. Amnesty International asked to be informed of any measures taken or contemplated to abolish the death penalty or restrict its scope, such as legislation to provide alternative penalties for murder.

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