Oct. 30
AUSTRALIA/SINGAPORE:
Amnesty's death row campaign draws record response
Amnesty International says Australians are responding in record numbers to
its campaign to save a Melbourne man sentenced to death in Singapore.
Van Nguyen, 25, has been convicted of heroin smuggling and could be
executed within weeks.
Prime Minister John Howard says the Federal Government has done all it
can.
But Tim Goodwin, from Amnesty International, says the fight is far from
over.
"We're also getting a lot of support from the broader Australian community
as well," he said.
"People are contacting us, they're logging onto our website, they're
phoning us in record numbers asking us what they can do to actually voice
their protest and take a stand for basic human rights in this case."
But Mr Goodwin concedes it is a major challenge to try to convince
Singapore's Government to change its mind.
"They do have a very tough record, a very brutal record of carrying out
executions and we're very aware of that but at the same time we're not
going to give up on this case," he said.
"While ever he's still alive we're going to keep campaigning, keep raising
awareness of this issue and the fundamental violation that actually is the
death penalty."
(source: ABC News Online)
JAMAICA:
The death penalty revisited
Bruce Golding has declared the Jamaica Labour Party's support for the
death penalty, saying that a government of his party would resume hanging
immediately. The party will also make national security its priority.
Prime Minister Patterson has invited Mr. Golding to discuss a common
position between Government and Opposition on the death penalty.
News reports last week said that a majority of the Members of Parliament
on both sides support the death penalty, but public declarations from both
parties is something new.
The People's National Party (PNP) did make it a campaign issue in 2002 but
the JLP only offered to 'Increase penalties for terrorist activities and
other serious crimes'. The National Democratic Movement (NDM) had not made
it a part of its 1997 election platform under Mr. Golding's leadership.
The JLP had stridently objected to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ)
becoming Jamaica's final appellate court on the grounds that it was
intended to be a hanging court, a backdoor to the death penalty. It had
the support of Jamaicans for Justice and the Bar Association.
The PNP had not formed a sufficient consensus on hanging in the 1990s. Mr.
Patterson had acknowledged that different positions existed in the party
andgovernment.
However, by 2002 things began to change. The PNP declared that it would
resume hanging if it were re-elected. Shortly after the election, the
JLP's Shadow Minister on National Security, Derrick Smith, seemed to
indicate support within his camp by telling the Government to get on with
it.
Disagreement over the status of the CCJ stood in the way. As recently as
February 2005, Mr. Patterson told interim Opposition Leader, Dr. Ken
Baugh, that both sides should determine whether Jamaica should abolish the
death penalty or retain it in some form, as a way to find a breakthrough
on the CCJ.
THE CCJ AND THE DEATH PENALTY
In Pratt and Morgan, the UK Privy Council had ruled that keeping someone
on death row for more than 5 years constituted cruel and inhuman
punishment. It required that in such cases, the sentence be commuted to
life imprisonment. Mr. Golding intends to exploit this fallacious logic.
He would comply with the Privy Council by applying quick death, not what
the Privy Council intended but which its ruling permits.
Yet, Mr. Golding can do even better than this by joining with Government's
proposal to amend the Constitution so that Jamaica would have the
authority to determine how much time convicts had to appeal to a final
court. This could be less than 5 years.
Mr. Golding need not try to dance around Pratt and Morgan. Jamaica has the
power to make its own laws. First, we can reduce the time period for
appeals, and since hanging is no longer an issue that should divide the
parties on the CCJ, the JLP can now agree to use it as our final appellate
court. Since Mr. Golding still wants a referendum on this he should now
say if his party would support having the CCJ as Jamaica's final court in
that referendum. There seems to be no further basis on which it should
not.
Besides, with or without the CCJ, Jamaicans can be hanged anyway. In 2003,
the UK Privy Council ruled that it would not hear appeals against
extradition. This means that if a Jamaican is wanted in the United States
to answer for a crime for which he faces the death penalty, he cannot
appeal that a U.S. court would endanger his right to life. Similarly, if a
Jamaican is wanted in any CARICOM territory, and the death penalty is
applicable in all (except Suriname and Haiti), he can be hanged in those
countries.
Jamaicans, in fact, are subject to the death penalty in over 80 countries
in which it applies. Since both parties agree to the death penalty, a
referendum becomes superfluous and an unnecessary delay. Furthermore,
since many of the countries that apply the death penalty have broken down
judicial systems it would be better to apply our own courts, which are
superior to many, including the CCJ. Even the United States court system
makes erroneous judgments.
We should concentrate our energies on establishing systems for foolproof
intelligence and solid evidence. If we must have a referendum, it might
make better sense to give the CCJ a chance to work and have one a few
years down the road to determine if it should retain appellate
jurisdiction.
THE DEATH PENALTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
The JLP now supports the death penalty, the CCJ is no longer an issue as a
hanging court, and Jamaicans are subject to the death penalty in half of
the countries of the world anyway. There is still the objection that the
state should not take the life of citizens. Human rights, for me, mean
that no one should take another's life except as a judicial form of
punishment. Criminal citizens, however, have their own practices. They
wantonly take the life of other citizens subject to no standards.
Criminals apply the death penalty without having to prove guilt. They make
no distinction between capital and non-capital punishment. It does not
matter if the person is rich or poor. The victim's gender does not matter.
Where does the real threat to life come from - the state or the (criminal)
citizen?
Churches, schools, homes and business places are not safe havens from
criminals. Children are callously murdered, as are the elderly. Criminals
sentence citizens to death and carry out that sentence without mercy. Over
a thousand Jamaicans have been sent to the gallows already this year. It
cannot be good for human rights standards when criminals kill citizens but
citizens cannot apply like punishment. In an ideal world, the death
penalty should not apply, but we are far from that ideal.
We have entered a new era of transnational criminality that threatens our
very systems of democracy, economic production, and personal safety.
In the UN's most recent human development index, Jamaica slipped 19 places
largely because the state of human security has declined so badly. Human
development suffers when the environment for personal safety deteriorates.
We must ask which matters more - the human rights of criminals or the
human development of law-abiding citizens.
Crime and violence have a multiplier effect, not just on the economy and
on human security, but because they lead to more dangerous and daring
crimes as well. These involve kidnapping, extortion, the targeted killing
of policemen and the random killing of children. If recent dangers to
Olivia Grange point to a new trend, violence might be turned against our
Members of Parliament in much the same way that criminals assassinate
politicians and judges in other countries.
In fact, if we agree to apply the death penalty, criminals will be judged
by more humane standards than they apply to innocent citizens. There is
precedent (in Jamaica and elsewhere) for the death penalty to exempt
women, minors, and the mentally handicapped and, of course, the death
penalty will only apply to capital as against non-capital crimes.
Criminals make no such exemptions for their victims. Yet, we should also
consider broadening the net of capital crimes to include murder of
children, and for relevance to Operation Kingfish, the leaders of gangs
proven to be involved in murder, extortion, or drug trafficking.
(source: Jamaica Gleaner)
