Perhaps I should declare that my enthusiasm for the breath of fresh air that Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar brought to our country by her election victory has not yet dimmed. I am heartened by the empathy shown to the sick, the disabled, the elderly and the victims of violent crime. Hurt persons are no longer collateral damage.

I make this declaration because I continue to be deeply disturbed by the governance style of some of her Ministers and others, which will poison her fresh air. All their political extempo is unseemly and is likely to cause confusion. Many readers agree that Kamla must rein in these runaway horses. The Government must speak with one voice on policy matters. I am encouraged by a newspaper report that suggests that the Government will retreat to take stock. I suggested this last Sunday.

This week I write about implementation of the death penalty. I seek to infuse recent extempo utterances on that subject with a stiff dose of legal reality. En passant, I noted that one colleague was upset by my reference to the appointment of special advisers because someone of whom he thinks well received such an appointment.

I maintain that a favourable assessment of someone is not a reason for bestowing an appointment to carry out functions similar to those which the formal governance structure vests in others. The overlap of special advisers and other favoured persons treading the same path as Ministers and other legitimate appointees makes for confusion in accountability and has the flavour of insider dealing.

What I have described above is, by way of another example, the problem with the Special Anti Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (SAUTT). This so-called unit cannot lawfully be a parallel police service anymore than someone can carry out responsibilities parallel to a Minister or designated public servant.

It is simplistic, wrong and misleading for anyone to say that the law provides for the death penalty for convicted killers so press on and carry out the law. It is true that the Offences Against The Person Act simply provides that "every person convicted of murder shall suffer death". However, as a result of judicial decisions the law cannot be carried out simply following an instruction by a Prime Minister to an Attorney General such as the "instruction" Minister Jack Warner purported to give when acting as Prime Minister.

There can be no such instruction to the Attorney General or the Minister of National Security to set up some hangings next week or next month. The law relating to the implementation of the death penalty is more complex than that and a cursory look into the subject will confirm this. Perhaps some commentators should update their reading.

Why are glib statements about the implementation of the death penalty wrong? Decisions of the Privy Council have placed restrictions on the carrying out of the death penalty so that the mandatory punishment for murder has been effectively qualified for a long time now. These judicial decisions are as much part of the law as the provision in the Offences against the Person Act for the mandatory death penalty.

The Privy Council's position is this: It has by its decisions applied the fundamental rights provisions of the Constitution to the implementation of the mandatory death penalty and has thereby "sought to give effect to the human rights and values declared and entrenched in the Constitution of Caribbean countries".

The Board, as the Privy Council is known, has plainly stated that its judicial decisions, which can be properly described as restrictions on carrying out the death penalty, can be reversed but that the means to do so is by amendment of the Constitution. In fact, Barbados did amend its Constitution to reverse certain Privy Council decisions several years ago.

The Board may not like the idea but they acknowledge that they have to accept the constitutional amendment. I quote Lord Nicholls referring to the reversal of the judicial decisions by Barbados; he said: "All courts of Barbados, including their Lordships in Barbados when sitting as the supreme court of Barbados, must of course give effect to this change in the Constitution of Barbados.

"If the requisite legislative support for a change in the constitution is forthcoming, a deliberate departure from fundamental human rights may be made, profoundly regrettable although this may be. That is the prerogative of the legislature. If departure from fundamental human rights is desired, that is the way it should be done. The constitution should be amended explicitly."

The specific obstacles which stand in the way of the death penalty as a result of judicial decisions are well documented. Given the present configuration of the House of Representatives and the Senate it is time for Kamla and Rowley to talk on this subject. Are we amending the Constitution to categorise degrees of murder and to resuscitate the death penalty or not?