Maravi

Supporting and opposing the death penalty

Supporting and opposing the death penalty
By The Post
Mon 02 July 2012, 13:25 CAT

THERE is a strong and interesting debate going on about whether or not the death sentence should be retained in our constitution. We have listened attentively and respectfully to all the arguments being advanced for and against the death sentence. Let's respect convictions, beliefs and explanations. Everyone is entitled to his own positions, his own beliefs.

But we must work together in the sphere of these human problems that interest us all and constitute a duty for all. We have listened to the views of Reverend Pukuta Mwanza, the executive director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, calling for the death penalty to be retained.

He argues that the death penalty is necessary for the protection of the general public as without it the lives of innocent citizens will be unsafe. We do not know whether the views of Rev Mwanza are personal or represent the position of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia on this issue.

We have also heard the views of Fr Augustine Mwewa, a priest in the Ndola Catholic Diocese, supporting the retention of the death penalty. Fr Mwewa says the death penalty serves as a deterrent and helps in reducing crime and that capital punishment assured the safety of society by eliminating criminals. He further argues that that only time the death sentence should be abolished is when the Judiciary puts its house in order.

And Caritas Zambia, a Catholic civil society organisation, has expressed views contrary to those of Fr Mwewa, calling for the abolishing of the death sentence because it undermines the respect for life.

A consortium of civil society organisations that promote the human rights of prisoners has also resolved to oppose the retention of the death penalty in the new constitution. They argue that the death penalty is inhuman and it is against the values of Christianity and human rights.

We hold the opinion or view that the death penalty is barbaric and should be abolished. The death penalty offers our nation not further protection from crime but further brutalisation. The death penalty is premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state. The state can exercise no greater power over a person than that of deliberately depriving him or her of life.

No matter what reasons we give for executing prisoners and the methods of execution we use, the death penalty cannot be separated from the issue of human rights. As Levy Mwanawasa once put it, there can never be a justification for torture or for cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The cruelty of the death penalty is evident.

An execution constitutes an extreme physical and mental assault on a person already rendered helpless by government authorities. Like killings which take place outside the law, the death penalty denies the value of human life and cannot be reconciled with respect for human rights.

And if the death penalty can be justified for one offence, justification that accord with the prevailing views of society or its rulers will be found for it to be used for other offences.

Whatever purpose is cited, the idea that we can justify a punishment as cruel as death conflicts with the very concepts of human rights. The significance of human rights is precisely that some means may never be used to protect society because their use violates the very values which make society worth protecting.
When this essential distinction between appropriate and inappropriate means is set aside in the name of some greater good, all rights are vulnerable and all individuals are threatened.

The death penalty, as a violation of fundamental human rights, would be wrong even if it could be shown that it uniquely met a vital social need. What makes the use of the death penalty even more indefensible and the case for its abolition even more compelling is that it has never been shown to have any special power to meet any unique social need.

Countless men and women have been executed for the stated purpose of preventing crime, especially the crime of murder. Yet, study after study in diverse countries has failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty has any unique capacity to deter others from committing particular crimes.

Undeniably, the death penalty, by permanently incapacitating a prisoner, prevents that person from repeating the crime. But there is no way to be sure that the prisoner would indeed have repeated the crime if allowed to live, nor is there any need to violate any prisoner's right to life for the purpose of incapacitation: dangerous offenders can be kept safely away from the public without execution.

Every society seeks protection from crime. Far from being a solution, the death penalty gives the erroneous impression that firm measures are being taken against crime. It diverts attention from the more complex measures which are really needed.

When the arguments of deterrence and incapacitation fall away, one is left with a more deep-seated justification for the death penalty: that of just retribution for the particular crime committed. According to this argument, certain people deserve to be killed for the repayment for the evil done: there are crimes so offensive that killing the offender is the only just response.
It is an emotionally powerful argument. It is also one which, if valid, would invalidate the basis for human rights.

If a person who commits a terrible act can deserve the cruelty of death, why not others, for similar reasons, deserve to be tortured or imprisoned without trial or simply shot on sight? Central to fundamental human rights is that they are inalienable.

This means that the right to life doesn't need to be earned by conduct for one to enjoy it. They may not be taken away even if a person has committed the most atrocious of crimes.

Human rights apply to the worst of us as well as to the best of us, which is why they protect all of us.

What the argument of retribution boils down to is often more than the desire for vengeance masked as a principle of justice. The desire for vengeance can be understood and acknowledged but the exercise of vengeance must be resisted. The history of the endeavour to establish the rule of law is a history of the progressive restriction of personal vengeance in public policy and legal codes.

If today's penal system does not sanction burning of an arsonist's home, the rape of a rapist or the torture of a torturer, it is not because they tolerate the crimes. Instead, it is because societies understand that they must be built on a different set of values from those they condemn.

An execution cannot be used to condemn killing; it is killing. Such an act by the state is the mirror image of the criminal's willingness to use physical violence against a victim. And probably this explains why Nelson Mandela concluded that "the death sentence is a reflection of the animal instinct still in human beings".

For these reasons, we urge all the Zambian people to demand the removal of the death sentence from their statute books, from their Constitution.

Labels: CCZ, DEATH PENALTY, PUKUTA MWANZA

posted by MrK @ 3:21 PM