Jamaica
We have been working in Jamaica for more than three decades, building a body of legal work alongside our legal partners that has shaped the landscape of capital punishment across the region.
From providing legal representation to individuals facing miscarriages of justice and other cruel forms of punishment, to continuing to advocate for full abolition of capital punishment, our work in Jamaica remains as active as ever.
Jamaica is classified as abolitionist de facto, as an execution has not been carried out since 1988, but the country retains the death penalty in law. There are currently no people living on death row, yet the country has not indicated an intention to fully abolish capital punishment.
We have been working in Jamaica since the late 1980s, focusing on litigation, research, advocacy and training. Our earliest work included visits to correctional facilities and meetings with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General to advocate for prison reform.
In 2011, in collaboration with local partners, we published a report on prison conditions in Jamaica, documenting the conditions of detention in Jamaica’s prison and the urgent need for reform.
Our litigation work has produced some of the most significant legal precedents on the death penalty in Jamaica and in the wider Caribbean. In 1993, we assisted in the landmark case of Pratt and Morgan, in which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that keeping a person on death row for more than five years constituted cruel and inhuman punishment. This ruling reverberated across the region.
More recently, our work in the country has focused on miscarriages of justice and the rights of vulnerable people. In 2024, we supported a constitutional motion on behalf of individuals with mental health difficulties and assisted in a case in which the Privy Council unanimously quashed the murder convictions of four appellants after finding that their trial had been grossly unfair.
We continue to provide legal representation to individuals facing miscarriages of justice and other cruel forms of punishment, pursuing appeals before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and local apex courts. Achieving abolition hinges on fundamental rights being upheld. So, when the legal issues involved in a case or challenge have the potential to shape how basic rights are interpreted, protected and expanded, we get involved.
Our work advocating for the abolition of the death penalty in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean continues.