{{Short description|Trilogy of UK cases on the constitutionality of the capital punishment}} {{italic title}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{for|the Canadian "right to food" trial|R v Hughes (Canada)}} [[File:Royal Arms of the United Kingdom (Privy Council).svg|thumb|upright|Arms of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council]] '''''R v Hughes''''', '''''Reyes v R''''' and '''''Fox v R''''' were a trilogy of closely related cases considered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC), with the appeals heard together and the decisions released simultaneously on the 11 March 2002.<ref name="Burnham2005">{{cite journal |last1=Burnham |first1=Margaret A. |title=Indigenous constitutionalism and the death penalty: The case of the Commonwealth Caribbean |journal=International Journal of Constitutional Law |date=1 October 2005 |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=582–616 |doi=10.1093/icon/moi041 |url=https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/3/4/582/792017 |doi-access=free |access-date=12 December 2024 |issn=1474-2659}}</ref><ref name="Roe2002">{{cite journal |last1=Roe |first1=Thomas |title=Human Rights and the Mandatory Death Penalty in the Privy Council |journal=The Cambridge Law Journal |date=2002 |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=505–508 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4508918 |access-date=12 December 2024 |issn=0008-1973}}</ref> The cases dealt with the constitutionality of the capital punishment in the Commonwealth Caribbean countries of Saint Lucia, Belize and Saint Kitts and Nevis respectively.<ref name="Burnham2005" />
''Reyes'' concerned a man who, during a conflict over a fence, shot his neighbour and the neighbour's wife, then unsuccessfully attempted suicide.<ref name="Roe2002" /> ''Fox'' involved British bodybuilder Bertil Fox, who in 1998 was convicted of the double murder of his former fiancée and her mother the previous year.<ref name="Greg2005">{{cite journal |last1=Merritt |first1=Greg |title=A letter from Bertil: Bertil Fox is serving a life sentence for double murder on the island of St. Kitts. In this FLEX exclusive, he gives his version of what happened on that fateful day in 1997. |journal=Flex |date=10 December 2005 |volume=23 |issue=10 |page=186 |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A139435413/AONE?u=wikipedia&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=4a4270e4|via=Gale Academic OneFile}}</ref>
In all three cases it was held that mandatory death penalty was contrary to prohibitions on inhuman punishment, and thus unconstitutional.<ref name="Harrington2004">{{cite journal |last1=Harrington |first1=Joanna |title=The Challenge to the Mandatory Death Penalty in the Commonwealth Caribbean |journal=American Journal of International Law |date=January 2004 |volume=98 |issue=1 |pages=126–140 |doi=10.2307/3139261 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/abs/challenge-to-the-mandatory-death-penalty-in-the-commonwealth-caribbean/3DF63EE30511A64FF635E12D26131ECB |access-date=12 December 2024 |language=en |issn=0002-9300|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
However, this conclusion doesn't necessarily apply in all of the Caribbean Commonwealth as the 2004 cases JCPC of ''Boyce v R'' (Barbados) and ''Matthew v The State'' (Trinidad and Tobago) found for the constitutionality of the death penalty in those countries.<ref name="Hill2018">{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Sheridon M. |editor1-last=Wallace |editor1-first=Wendell C. |title=The Death Penalty in the Caribbean: Perspectives from the Police |date=8 September 2018 |publisher=Westphalia Press |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-1-63391-724-8 |pages=49-101 |chapter=Untangling the Web: Rationalizing the Death Penalty Jurisprudence in the Caribbean}}</ref>
== References == === Citations === {{reflist|30em}}
Category:2002 in United Kingdom case law Category:2002 in Saint Lucia Category:Death penalty case law Category:Judicial Committee of the Privy Council cases on appeal from Saint Lucia Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Saint Lucia Category:Murder in Saint Lucia Category:2002 in Saint Kitts and Nevis Category:Judicial Committee of the Privy Council cases on appeal from Saint Kitts and Nevis Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Saint Kitts and Nevis Category:Murder in Saint Kitts and Nevis Category:2002 in Belize Category:Judicial Committee of the Privy Council cases on appeal from Belize Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Belize Category:Murder in Belize Category:Human rights in Belize