It’s inevitable that we all grow old. As this happens to your parents, you may find that in time they have become your dependents. If one or both of your parents live abroad you may want them to join you in the UK so that you can take care of them. If you’re in this situation, it’s essential to understand the immigration rules that apply:

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When would my parent(s) be allowed to join me in the UK?

If your mother or father is aged 65 or over, they can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK. If both parents are applying to join you and will be travelling together, at least one of them should be aged 65 or over. If one or both of your parents are under this age, they can still apply to live in the UK with you, but it must be deemed to be under the ‘most exceptional compassionate circumstances’. In all cases, applying parents should have no close relatives in their own country whom they could turn to for support.

What if my parent has remarried, can their spouse join us too?

If your parent is 65 or over and has remarried, they should be in a situation where their spouse or civil partner is also unable to support them financially. They will be allowed to bring their spouse or civil partner to the UK, along with any dependent children from the relationship.

What are the requirements that involve me?

If you are calling a dependent parent to live with you, you must be present and settled in the UK. Your parent should be fully or largely financially dependent on you. In addition, you should be able to support and maintain them – along with any spouse, civil partner or dependent children they bring with them – without anyone having needs to apply for public funds. This includes housing them in a place which you own or live in and which proves to be adequate accommodation for them.

Is there anything else they will need to do?

Your parent(s) should be in possession of a valid Entry Clearance when entering the UK. Entry Clearance is the procedure used to determine whether the applicant successfully meets the criteria required to reside in the UK as a dependent. Your parent may have to visit the British Embassy Government Consulate in their local area for this clearance to be obtained.

The application to enter and reside in the UK as a dependent needs to be made in the country of residence of the parent who is applying. It is wise to obtain the advice of a professional UK immigration lawyer who can help applicants and their sponsors understand the application procedure, assist with filing applications correctly and offer counsel concerning any issues that may be problematic to their application.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups report that over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Specifically, Amnesty International reports that 63 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while 91 other countries, a number of which are in the English Speaking Caribbean (ESC), retain and use the death penalty. The countries that comprise the ESC are: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Dominica, Bahamas and Suriname.

In the late 1990’s Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations viewed with alarm what they believe is a trend toward the increasing popularity of hangings in the Caribbean, a vestige of British colonial rule. England had only one form of execution for murder – that was hanging by the neck until dead. Although England ended the death penalty in 1991, the ESC maintains the tradition of hanging murders. Human rights groups decried the fact that a number of governments in the ESC had undertaken controversial steps to change their justice systems and constitutions and sever ties with international appeals bodies to make it easier to carry out such executions.

Of course, many in the United States are not aware of the death penalty debate that raged between human rights groups and the governments of many of the ESC nations of the Caribbean; nor are they aware that executions in the ESC are still carried out by hanging. This article is mainly about one ESC woman on death row who beat the gallows. It is my belief that gender-bias helped save her from hanging. However, first we must take a few moments to examine the roots of the discussion. To do so we must look at what has become known to both the proponents of the death penalty and those in favor of it abolition, as Pratt and Morgan.

PRATT AND MORGAN

Pratt and Morgan, two consolidated cases from Jamaica, ( Pratt v. Attorney General for Jamaica, 2 App. Cas. 1), resulted in a 1993 landmark judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the British court of last resort for many Caribbean nations. In essence, that judgment established the principle that both Pratt and Morgan, who had been prisoners on Jamaica’s death row for a period exceeding five years, could be seen as victims of cruel and inhumane punishment if they were sent to the gallows, and should therefore, have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The Privy Council also recommended that other prisoners on death row in the region for five years or more should also have their sentences commuted.

The Privy Council then reviewed the tortured chronology of the appellants’ appeal process which included lost applications for appeals, rulings denying their appeal with no written explanation, and failure of Jamaica to recognize the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after their review of the case. It was the ruling of the Privy Council that in any case in which execution is to take place more than five years after sentence there would be strong grounds for believing that the delay is such as to constitute inhumane treatment or punishment as proscribed by the Constitution.

As a result of Pratt and Morgan all prisoners in the Caribbean who had been on death row for longer than five years had their sentences commuted to life in prison. Scores of prisoners continue to be removed from death row as a result. It is reported that for those remaining the Pratt and Morgan decision has set off a scramble to extend their appeals process beyond the five year limit. Before Pratt and Morgan, there were 450 prisoners on death row throughout the ESC. While only a handful of hangings have occurred in the region since Pratt and Morgan, the death row population is now much less than half of what it was in 1993 – a direct consequence of the commutation of sentences.

In the late 1990’s Trinidad and Tobago was the only ESC nation with women on death row. Amnesty International reported, as of April 1999, there were seventy six men and five women on death row in Trinidad.

TRINIDAD

I traveled to Trinidad in June 1999 to learn more about the country and about the women on death row. The ESC islands of Trinidad and Tobago form a unitary state, with a parliamentary democracy modeled after the United Kingdom. The country is headed by a president who is elected by the parliament. There is an independent judiciary but constitutional cases may be appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The two islands host a population of 1.3 million people and comprise a land mass about 1.5 times the size of the state of Rhode Island. The southernmost tip of Trinidad is only three miles from the Coast of Venezuela. The major ethnic group is of East Indian descent (40.3%), followed closely by those of African descent (39.5%), 18% of the people are of mixed nationality, while those of European descent comprise 0.6% of the population. The country is endowed with rich deposits of oil Housing report spouse visa and natural gas and boasted a GDP of $5.4 billion for the year 1996.

Women on Death Row

While in Trinidad I was able to learn about three of the five women on death row. There is Giselle Stafford. She was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of a man. Angela Ramdeen was sentenced in 1997 to be hanged. Ms. Ramdeen was convicted for the murder of her two step children. And, then there is Indravani Pamela Ramjattan who went to death row for the 1995 slaying of her common law husband, Alexander Jordan.

No women have been executed in Trinidad since its independence from Great Britain in 1962. Most of the women on death row are there as a result of some form of domestic violence. A number of women’s groups, as well as Amnesty International, believe that domestic violence against women is a way of life in Trinidad. It is reported that 27 women were murdered in domestic violence encounters in 1998. In total there were a reported 2,282 cases of domestic violence in the same year. Unfortunately, there were only six women’s shelters in the entire nation in the late 1990’s and no legal aid exists for battered women. What we know as the battered wife syndrome in United States Courts as a defense to assault or homicide of a spouse is unknown in Trinidad. Such evidence if presented in Trinidadian court could only be used to show “diminished responsibility.”

The Ramjattan Case

Among the women on death row in Trinidad Ms. Ramjattan’ s case was the most chronicled because of interest by women’s groups and human rights activists. Despite Trinidad’s Attorney General’s zeal to carry out the death penalty for all those on death row within the Pratt and Morgan five year limitation there was much local speculation that the government of then, Prime Minister, Basdeo Panday, would not execute women.

Indravani Pamela Ramjattan, Haniff Hillaire, and Denny Baptiste were all convicted in 1995, in a joint trial for the murder of Ramjattan’ s common law husband Alexander Jordan at Cumuto, Trinidad. The facts