Report No. 58 (2011) IACHR. Petition No. 703-05 (Trinidad y Tobago)

• Court: Inter-American Comission of Human Rights
• Year: 2011
• Petition Number: 703-05
• Report Number: 58
• Respondent State: Trinidad & Tobago
• Case Type: Archive
• Alleged Victim: Mark Teeluck

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REPORT No. 58/11

PETITION 703-05

DECISION TO ARCHIVE

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

March 23, 2011

ALLEGED VICTIMS: M.T.

PETITIONER: Saul A. Lehrfreund and Parvais Jabbar (Simons Muirhead & Burtson, Solicitors)

INITIATION OF PROCESSING: J. 21, 2005

ALLEGED VIOLATIONS: Articles I, II, XVII, XVIII, and XXVI of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (the “American Declaration”)

1. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES

A. THE PETITIONERS

1. On J. 17, 2005, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the “Inter-American Commission” or the “IACHR”) received a petition and a request for precautionary measures from S.A.L.a.P.J. from Simons Muirhead & Burton, Solicitors (the “petitioners”), on behalf of M.T. (the “alleged victim”). Mr. Teeluck was convicted of murder on J. 14, 2000, and sentenced to death by hanging under T.’s mandatory death penalty law.

2. In their first submission, the petitioners alleged that the rights of the alleged victim under the American Declaration were being violated by the S. due to the mandatory death penalty; the effect of the Savings Clause in the Constitution; the execution of his death sentence by hanging; and his conditions of his confinement and treatment on death row. The petitioners also reported that the alleged victim unsuccessfully appealed his conviction and sentence through the domestic system with his final appeal having been dismissed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (“Privy Council”) on March 23, 2005.

3. The petitioners later informed that on August 15, 2008, the High Court of T. and T. decided in the case of D., Teeluck and Others to commute the sentence of death imposed on the alleged victim and other applicants, to a sentence of life imprisonment. They note that the Constitutional Motion was brought for the benefit of all persons on death row who were sentenced to death before the Privy Council delivered its judgment in M. v. T.S. on J. 7, 2004, in which the Privy Council recommended that all prisoners then under sentence of death, including the alleged victim, should have their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

4. On August 26, 2009, the petitioners informed the Commission that they no longer wished to pursue the petition due to the fact that “each of the alleged breaches has been remedied to the extent that [Mr. Teeluck] is no longer subject to the mandatory death penalty nor the possibility of facing execution by hanging, and finally, he is no longer held on death row”.

B. THE STATE

5. The S. acknowledged receipt of the petition but provided no substantive response to the facts alleged by the petitioners.

II. PROCESSING BEFORE THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION

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