Sept. 11
INDONESIA:
Murder in S'kan: Man's death penalty upheld
The Federal Court here yesterday upheld the death penalty for a 53-year-old man
convicted of a murder 7 years ago.
The 5-member panel chaired by Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria was unanimous in
dismissing Ejah Jaafar's appeal against his conviction. The panel also
comprised Justices Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Embong, Dato' Hasan Lah, Datuk Zainun
Ali and Dato' Jeffery Tan Kok Wha.
They ruled that the principle of grave and sudden provocation did not apply in
this case when affirming the appellant's conviction and death sentence.
The appellant was convicted on March 6, 2009 by the High Court in Sandakan for
murdering Hajan Jaiman, 37, on October 21, 2006 at an unmarked house in Kampung
Muhibbah, Mile 2 1/2, Jalan Utara, Sandakan, with 3 persons who are still at
large.
The offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code carries the mandatory death
sentence upon conviction.
His 1st appeal in the Court of Appeal on September 19, 2011 was dismissed on
the grounds that the conviction and death sentence imposed on him was correct.
Earlier, the appellant's counsel, Hamid Ismail, submitted that the learned
trial judge had improperly evaluated the evidence in the defense case.
Hamid contended that his client had committed the act on the premise of grave
and sudden provocation and that the learned trial judge had not considered this
in his ruling.
The appellant further submitted that the learned trial judge did not consider
facts not in evidence of the case and that the charge was not proven beyond
reasonable doubt.
In her reply, deputy public prosecutor, Magai Krishnan, said the defense case
was indeed properly evaluated by the learned trial judge.
She said due to there being no grave and sudden provocation because of a
cooling off period of 7 1/2 hours between the attacks against the victim.
(source: The Borneo Post)
INDIA:
Death Penalty Is Not a Quick Fix Solution to Serious Crime
The 4 Delhi gang rape convicts are likely to be sentenced to death for raping
and killing a 23 year old woman. President Pranab Mukherjee said the incident
"shook the conscience of the whole nation." As horrific as the crime was,
executing the rapists will not prevent similar crimes recurring.
Women's rights groups in India have opposed the death penalty for rape, saying
that it is "neither a deterrent nor an effective or ethical response to these
acts of sexual violence." The recent reform of rape laws is a positive step but
has its limitations, for instance in not criminalising marital rape. The rights
groups call for legal reform to establish gradations of sexual offences and
improve the conviction rate. Perhaps most importantly, the Indian government
needs to address gender and social inequality in society - equality in law will
lead to greater rights and respect for all in society. This requires a
significant overhaul of legal, economic and social structures. Hanging the four
Delhi rapists might satisfy the conscience of the nation, but it does nothing
to improve the lot of women in India.
In the past 8 years, India has executed 2 people: Ajmal Kasab (from Pakistan)
for the 2008 Mumbai attacks and Afzal Guru (from Kashmir) for the 2001 attack
on the Indian Parliament. Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, an alleged Sikh
separatist, faces imminent execution for the 1993 car bomb in Delhi. This gives
the impression that when the root cause of the crime is complex and the
solution requires a long term strategy, the Indian authorities turn to the
guillotine for a quick-fix solution. The execution of a Pakistani will not
resolve the territorial dispute with Pakistan. The execution of a Kashmiri will
not address the grievances of Kashmiris. And executing a Sikh will do nothing
to improve relations with Sikhs in the Punjab. One might expect the Indian
public to be angry at their government's unwillingness to prevent crimes from
happening, rather than calling for more severe punishments for the perpetrators
once a crime has been committed.
India is, of course, not the only country that needs to address sexual violence
and terrorism. European countries also have difficulty tackling both and some
of the underlying issues are similar. Like India, the UK too has some men with
a sense of entitlement to women which, when combined with victims reluctance to
report the offence and low conviction rates, leads to a disturbingly high
frequency of sexual offences. The UK has also been the victim of terrorist
attacks. But the vast majority of the British public does not demand the death
penalty to tackle these problems, and it is something that is unthinkable for
the British government.
The reasons to oppose the death penalty are well known: (1) the death penalty
is not more of a deterrent than life imprisonment, (2) innocent people may be
executed in cases of miscarriage of justice, (3) executing humans is wrong in
principle, and (4) spotlight on the death penalty distracts from addressing the
root cause of serious crimes.
There is no evidence to indicate that the death penalty is an effective
deterrent. On the contrary, research by William Bowers and Glenn Pierce has
suggested that the death penalty may have the opposite effect - in their study,
homicides in New York increased after highly publicised executions. Statistics
confirm that the death penalty is not a deterrent. Punishment for crimes is not
only for deterrence but also retribution. But executions are a form of
vengeance not retribution.
It is of concern that although the Supreme Court of India has ruled that the
death penalty should only be imposed in "the rarest of rare cases", there are
almost 500 convicts currently on death row awaiting their fate. In the 2009
Bariyar case, the Supreme Court of India admitted that at least seven sentences
of death had been awarded per incuriam (in error). This prompted 14 retired
judges to write to the President informing him that since 1996, 15 people had
erroneously been awarded the death sentence and two of them had by then been
hanged. The judges requested the President to commute the sentences of the
remaining 13 to life imprisonment. These concerns regarding the fairness of
trials make the case for abolition all the more compelling.
India has voted against the UN moratorium on the death penalty and it remains
amongst a minority of countries to continue to carry out executions. The death
penalty has been abolished in law or practice in 130 out of 192 UN member
states. India's recent resumption of executions has been condemned by rights
groups such as Amnesty International, ADPAN and Human Rights Watch.
Indians understandably do not want to see a repeat of the horrors of the Delhi
gang rape or the Mumbai terror attacks. To this end, they should call on their
government to address the root cause of these crimes and resist the governments
attempt to appease them by providing for the death sentence to the
perpetrators.
(source: Sajid Suleman, Researcher on human rights law----Huffington Post)
_______________________________________________
DeathPenalty mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A free service of WashLaw
http://washlaw.edu
(785)670.1088
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
