The much talked about bill to ban capital and corporal punishment was tabled before Parliament yesterday.

The Abolition of Capital and Corporal Punishment Act of 1999 was laid before the House of Assembly on Friday by Development and Opportunity Minister Terry Lister. While the punishments have not been used for some time, the Progressive Labour Party promised change in its 1998 election manifesto.

Five other acts are to be amended, including the Criminal Code, two appeal acts, prison related acts and regulations, and the Young Offenders Act.

All instances for which the death penalty is now renderable will be deleted.

Whipping will now be outlawed for such acts as intercourse with a mentally impaired woman, living on the earnings of a prostitute, indecency toward children, robbery, housebreaking, and breaking into a church.

Other changes include deleting clauses allowing boys who committed further offences while under a conditional discharge or probation to be whipped and felony housebreaking.

Sundry housekeeping portions of the act include deleting sections dealing with recording of a prisoner's death by execution, and rules on how death row inmates are to be treated.

Boys and men under age 18 will be spared corporal punishment -- they were already ineligible for the death penalty -- for breaching probation orders and violating senior training school rules. Women cannot be whipped.

The death penalty was last administered on December 1, 1977 to two men, and while several men have been sentenced to death since then, the Prerogative of Mercy Committee has consistently commuted their sentences to life in prison.

Whipping has not been used in Bermuda for more than 40 years.