Bermuda's political parties will this week decide whether a vote on the abolition of hanging and flogging will be a vote of conscience or the if the Whip will be imposed.

Development and Opportunity Minister Terry Lister -- who tabled the bill in the House of Assembly on Friday -- said the issue had yet to be discussed.

He added: "Discussion will take place prior to the bill being dealt with -- I'm really not in any position to say anything further at the moment.

"This is something that the parties in each case will make a decision on. We will sit down and talk about it this week.'' Past votes on the death penalty -- which have been in favour of retention -- have always been left to individual Members' consciences.

But with the vast majority of Progressive Labour Party MPs against hanging, a vote of conscience would carry the day in any case.

The United Bermuda Party, where most are also thought to be likely to vote for abolition in a free vote, have also yet to discuss the matter.

Opposition Leader Pamela Gordon said her party's view was still that hanging and flogging ought to be put to the people through a referendum.

But she added: "It's difficult to say how we will approach it. I don't want to pre-empt my colleagues.

"I want to give them the opportunity to discuss it and see whether we will go by way of a Whip or vote of conscience.'' Ms Gordon said opinions on hanging -- last used in 1977 -- varied in her party.

But she added that views -- given an increasing trend towards global standards and the UK's insistence that hanging and flogging go in its Territories to satisfy UK treaty obligations -- had perhaps softened among some MPs.

Ms Gordon said the PLP -- with a 12-strong majority -- could push the measure through either way.

Death penalty debate And she added that the UBP's main focus was now on securing -- if hanging was to go -- tough alternative penalties in its place to deter people from committing murder and other serious crimes.

Ms Gordon said she felt the PLP -- with a Throne Speech commitment to abolition -- would impose the Whip on its MPs as the bill was a Government one.

She said: "We would expect that with this, being a Government measure, that Members will not be allowed a conscience vote. We would anticipate that the Whip will be on for this matter.'' Capital punishment is used in Bermuda for premeditated murder.

And death sentences have been passed in local courts since Erskine (Buck) Burrows and Larry Tacklyn died on the gallows in 1977 for several shootings.

But the Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy -- whose members' identities are kept secret -- has commuted them all to life imprisonment.

Flogging as a court-imposed punishment has not been used for more than 40 years and its abolition is likely to be far less controversial.