government: Parliamentary democracy
state of civil and political rights: Free
constitution: 19 December 1973
legal system: based on English common law
legislative system: bicameral Parliament consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives
judicial system: Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, consisting of a court of Appeal and a High Court of Justice
religion: Roman Catholic 53%, Anglican 13.8%, other Protestant 33.2%
death row: 1
year of last executions: 0-0-0
death sentences: 0
international treaties on human rights and the death penalty:
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Convention on the Rights of the Child
American Convention on Human Rights
The death penalty can be applied for aggravated murder and treason. Grenada has not carried out an execution since 1978, when three men were hanged for rape and murder.
Grenada is a British Independent Territory that retains the death penalty and for which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council remains the final court of appeal.
Since the 1993 Pratt and Morgan ruling by the Privy Council, the death penalty can not be carried out if the prisoner concerned has been under sentence of death for more than five years, in which case the sentence is automatically commuted to life imprisonment.
On March 11, 2002, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council confirmed the April 2001 decision of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal (ECCA) ruling that the mandatory death penalty was unconstitutional, and unanimously struck down the mandatory death penalty for murder in Grenada and six other countries. The JCPC made one modification to the ECCA's ruling, saying that sentences should be set by a judge and not a jury. All death row cases in these countries had to be reviewed.
Grenada was one of the signatories of the 2001 agreement to establish the new Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which is to replace the Privy Council as a final court of appeal in the region.
The Caribbean Court of Justice was inaugurated in Trinidad on April 16, 2005. Grenada, however, has to undergo constitutional amendments before being able to switch to its jurisdiction.
Human rights groups have warned that the court could be used to resume executions.
No new death sentences were imposed and the only death rows inmate at the end of 2016 was Kyron McFarlane.
The death penalty on women
Pregnat women are excluded from execution by the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
On 26 January 2015, Grenada was reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council. The Government did not support recommendations to establish an official moratorium on executions, abolish the death penalty and ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. However, the Government said there currently exists a de facto moratorium on executions and the application of the death penalty in place since 1978.
On December 19, 2016, Grenada voted again against the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.