The mandatory death penalty for murder in Trinidad & Tobago was ruled unconstitutional by the Privy Council last week.

Three of the five British law lords who heard the case in London found that Trinidad's automatic death sentence for those convicted of murder was inconsistent with the country's international obligations.

The ruling will mean a review of the cases of at least 80 men and four women currently on death row in Trinidad & Tobago.

It will also have implications for Jamaica, the Bahamas and Barbados, where a mandatory death sentence for murder is still in force.

The death penalty will now be just one option available to a sentencing judge, and defendants will have the right to appeal against it.

A completely new set of sentencing procedures is expected to be introduced.

Leading London-based human rights adviser Saul Lehrfreund of Simons Muirhead & Burton, who advised the individual sentenced to death who brought the case, Balkissoon Roodal, said: 'This was a very difficult case to win and with a verdict of three to two in our favour, it was only won by a whisker.

'The judgments of the minority and majority could not have been further away from each other.

'The ruling derived from the international obligations of Trinidad.

A similar case in Belize a few years ago has led to very few individuals now being sentenced to death there, even though, as in Trinidad & Tobago, the death sentence has support from the public.'