Skip to main content arrow-down arrow-tail-right arrow-triangle-right calendar camera compass download email eye facebook flag mail phone pin play send square-right tag twitter youtube badge message

DPP Assists in Quashing of Death Sentence for Sole Female Death Row Inmate in Trinidad

  • News
  • 27 Mar 2014

Ramdeen v The State

The death sentence of the sole female inmate awaiting execution in Trinidad has been quashed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.  Julia Ramdeen was convicted of murder on 29 July 2008 and had been held under a sentence of death until the Privy Council handed down its judgment to her appeal on 27 March 2014.

The Death Penalty Project assisted Ramdeen, both in her appeal against conviction, and also with her invitation to the Privy Council to quash her death sentence, because the time that had elapsed since the sentence was first imposed now rendered it inhuman punishment and therefore unconstitutional.  Ramdeen, however, had not yet commenced local constitutional proceedings in the Supreme Court to commute her sentence.

Whilst the Privy Council dismissed her appeal against conviction, it ordered that her sentence of death be commuted to one of life imprisonment.

The Privy Council found that, ordinarily, it has no jurisdiction to grant relief on a constitutional motion that should be filed and determined in the local court, rather than addressed for the first time on appeal.  However, as a matter of “fairness and convenience”, when an appellant is legitimately appealing against conviction or sentence – and that process results in an excessive delay – then the Privy Council has the power to order that the sentence be substituted for one of life imprisonment at the appeal hearing, in order to save the delay, cost and court time involved in a having to bring a fresh motion.

This decision should particularly assist impecunious and unrepresented appellants, by removing some of the procedural hurdles to obtaining the constitutional relief that they are entitled to.

Edward Fitzgerald QC and Ruth Brander, barristers at Doughty Street Chambers, were instructed pro bono in this case.

 

Related links:

The Times Law Reports, “Jurisdiction to Commute Death Sentence”

Latest news

Privy Council clarifies the approach trial judges should adopt when explaining “intent” to juries in The Bahamas
Read More
International Women's Day Q&A: Women in Human Rights
Read More
Cayman News Service: UK court rules against closed-door legal hearing
Read More
Cayman Loop News - Justin Ramoon, sentenced for murder, gets go ahead for judicial review
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - Privy Council refuses to allow Cayman Government to hold secret hearings in prisoner transfer case
Read More
Cayman Compass - Privy Council rules against secret trial for exiled killers
Read More
Cayman Marl Road - Privy Council refuses secret hearings in Cayman prisoner transfer case
Read More
NEW op-ed: Time to scrap capital punishment in Taiwan
Read More
Privy Council: Appeal dismissed amidst serious disclosure failings
Read More
James Guthrie, impressive barrister whose work in the Privy Council included a string of landmark cases – obituary
Read More
LATEST OP-ED: Hoyle & Jabbar - Death penalty doesn’t deter crime
Read More
New article in Kenya's The Star: Death row convicts in Kenya not threatened by penalty – findings
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - New research exploring socio-economic profiles of Kenya’s death row prisoners
Read More
Kenyan prisoners on death row weren’t deterred by the threat of the death penalty: new research findings
Read More
The Death Penalty Project pays tribute to James Guthrie KC
Read More
London-based NGO to challenge lawfulness of Guyana’s death penalty at CCJ
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - Guyana’s Court of Appeal refuses to declare the death penalty unconstitutional
Read More
The Conversation: 'Why has Kenya not abolished the death penalty? Habit and inertia'
Read More
Political and legal issues: reflections on our report launch in Kenya, Nairobi
Read More

Stay up-to-date with our work