A Written constitution is a “living instrument” (see, e.g., Commonwealth v. South Australia (1926) 38 C.L.R. 408, Dennis v. United States 341 U.S. 494 (1954) and Tyrer v. United Kingdom (1978) 2 E.H.R.R. 1). The judgments in Bovce v. The Queen, Matthew v. Trinidad and Tobago and Watson v. The Queen [2004] UKPC 32, 33, 34, [2004] 3 W.L.R. 786, 812, 841 accept this proposition but disclose profound disagreement as to its implications in practice.

In Reyes v. The Queen [2002] UKPC 11, [2002] 2 A.C. 235 (noted [2002] C.L.J. 505), the Privy Council held that the mandatory death sentence for murder in Belize was inhuman and degrading and thus contrary to the Constitution. In Boyce, Matthew and Watson the question was whether the same was true in Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.