Committee of the Privy Council helped give legal effect to the mechanisms of the regional system by prohibiting certain States from executing the death sentences of persons whose petitions were pending before the Commission or Court. Within this context, courts of national jurisdiction have found the mandatory death penalty to be unconstitutional in countries including Saint Lucia (The Queen v. Hughes), Dominica (Balson v. The State), Belize (Reyes v. The Queen), The Bahamas (Bowe v. The Queen) and Grenada (Coard et al. v. Grenada), among other examples. Following this period of reexamination of the mandatory death penalty, a number of countries have abolished that aspect of the death penalty. The judges of Belize, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Grenada and Guyana, among others, now have the discretion to impose lesser sentences. Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados presently remain the only two countries in the region that retain the mandatory death penalty, and Barbados reports that it is in the process of adopting reforms to abolish it in light of the sentence issued by the Inter‐ American Court in the Boyce case. 55. After the adoption of the IACHR’s report, the Caribbean Court of Justice ruling of June 27, 2018, found Barbados’ mandatory death penalty unconstitutional. 59 However, Trinidad and Tobago currently retain this penalty. 56. The United Nations Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life referred to the mandatory imposition of the death penalty in the following terms:60 In all cases involving the application of the death penalty, the personal circumstances of the offender and the particular circumstances of the offence, including its specific attenuating elements61 must be considered by the sentencing court. Hence, mandatory death sentences that leave domestic courts with no discretion on whether or not to designate the offence as a crime entailing the death penalty, and on whether or not to issue the death sentence in the particular circumstances of the offender, are arbitrary in nature.62 The availability of a right to seek pardon or commutation on the basis of the special circumstances of the case or the accused is not an adequate substitute for the need for judicial discretion in the application of the death penalty.63 57. Further, as indicated in the section of relevant legal framework above, Section 6 of the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago establishes that no law in effect prior to the date the Constitution entered into force may be the object of constitutional challenge. Therefore, and as stated by the Inter-American Court in the case of Hilaire and Constantine, “the Offences Against the Person Act is incompatible with the American Convention and thus any provision that establishes that Act’s immunity from challenge is likewise incompatible, by virtue of the fact that Trinidad and Tobago, as a party to the Convention at the time that the acts took place, cannot invoke provisions of its domestic law as justification for failure to comply with its international obligation”. 64 58. The Commission finds that the sentence to a mandatory death penalty was based solely upon the category of crime for which Messrs. Dial and Dottin were convicted. Therefore, the Commission concludes that the State of Trinidad and Tobago, by denying an individualized sentencing and the opportunity to present mitigating evidence, violated the victims’ rights under Articles 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2, 8.1 and 25 of the American Convention, in relation to its Articles 1.1 and 2. Further, given that the imposition of the mandatory death penalty continued after the entry into force of the denunciation of the American Convention, and until August 15, 2008, when the sentences of death were commuted to life imprisonment, the State has also violated Articles I, XVIII and XXVI of the American Declaration. The Caribbean Court of Justice: CCJ Strikes down mandatory death penalty in Barbados. June 27, 2018. Available at: https://www.ccj.org/ccj-strikes-down-mandatory-death-penalty-in-barbados/ 60 United Nations Human Rights Committee’s General comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life. CCPR/C/GC/36. October 30, 2018, para. 37. 61 Communication No. 390/1990, Luboto v Zambia, Views adopted on 31 Oct. 1995, para. 7.2. 62 Communication No. 1132/2002, Chisanga v. Zambia, Views adopted on 18 Oct. 2005, para. 7.4; Communication 1421/2005, Larranaga v. Philippines, Views adopted on 24 July 2006, para. 7.2; Communication 1077/2002, Carpo v Philippines, adopted on 6 May 2002, para. 8.3. 63 Communication No. 806/1998, Thompson v. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Views adopted on 18 Oct. 2000, para. 8.2; Communication 845/1998, Kennedy v Trinidad and Tobago, Views adopted on 26 March 2002, para. 7.3. 64 I/A Court H.R., Case of Hilaire, Constantine and Benjamin et al. v. Trinidad and Tobago. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of June 21, 2002. Series C No. 94, para. 152 c). 59 12