Before 20 Agust 1997, a life sentence meant twenty years, and like all other fixed term sentences, it carried the usual one-third remission for good behaviour, which allowed prisoners to gain parole after serving at least two-thirds of their sentences. In the case of Bobby Chung Hua Watt, a murder convict and carpenter whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in January 1980 after receiving clemency, he served two-thirds of his life term (equivalent to 13 years and four months) before he was released on parole for good behaviour and had the final third of the sentence remitted.
