Nov. 16
MALAYSIA:
Judge's discretion in death penalty
For many years now Malaysia has had the mandatory death penalty for drug
trafficking. This means that if a person is found guilty of trafficking then
the judge has no choice but to impose the death penalty.
Now the government is making efforts to amend the Dangerous Drugs Act so that
the death penalty for this offence is no longer mandatory.
In other words, the judge has a discretion and could, for example, imprison the
offender instead.
This is in my opinion a good development. According to international laws and
standards, the death penalty can be imposed. However, it is limited only to the
most serious offences, and if we look at the decisions of international law
bodies, this means crimes that actually cause death.
For example, armed robbery and kidnapping by itself does not warrant the death
penalty if a human life is not lost in the process.
Furthermore, a mandatory death penalty is definitely against international
standards as it means that the court has no choice in the matter and the
accused has limited or no recourse to appeal the sentence.
However, we do not yet know what these amendments look like, so we can't judge
just how far the changes in the law will be.
What I am hoping is that the judge will be given a true discretion. This means
that he or she can take into account a variety of factors before deciding what
punishment should be imposed.
Singapore has removed the mandatory death penalty from their drug offences too.
But according to an Amnesty International report, this actually means very
little. Before a lesser sentence can be imposed, the judge must be convinced
that the accused is merely a "courier". Furthermore, the prosecutor must be
satisfied that the accused has helped substantively affect drug trafficking.
This means that the judge really has a very limited scope of discretion.
If Malaysia takes this same approach, then I would argue that we will not be
following international human rights standards at all and the change in the law
will be merely cosmetic.
(source: Azmi Sharom is a law lecturer at Universiti
Malaya----themalaymailonline.com)
INDIA:
All death penalty cases cleared
The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday cleared all the 25 cases, which were sent
by the trial court for confirmation of death penalty imposed on convicts,
pending for adjudication since 2010, with confirmation of death penalty for
Mohan Kumar.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice John Michael
Cunha has confirmed death penalty in only 3 of the 25 cases.
While 2 cases of death penalty were remanded back to the trial courts, in the
remaining, either the sentences were reduced to life imprisonment or lesser
period, or the accused were acquitted, said Additional State Public Prosecutor
Vijayakumar Majage, while pointing out that 37 appeals filed by the convicts,
who were sentenced to death, were also disposed of.
(source: thehindu.com)
***************
Bihar court awards death sentence to man convicted for rape, murder of child
Summary: Earlier, in June 2016, a fast track court in Raigarh (Chattisgarh) had
awarded death penalty to a 23-year-old man for sexually assaulting and
murdering a 3-year-old girl. Altogether nine prosecution witnesses, including
the doctor who conduct autopsy of the victim, were examined by the court during
the trial. A district and sessions court at Motihari in East Champaran district
of north Bihar has awarded death sentence to a man accused of the rape and
murder of a 2 1/2 -year-old girl in Chiraiyan police station area of the
district on March 21, 2011. During interrogation, he confessed to his
involvement in the rape and murder of the child. When they returned home, they
found the girl the girl missing.
A district and sessions court at Motihari in East Champaran district of north
Bihar has awarded death sentence to a man accused of the rape and murder of a
two-and-half -year-old girl in Chiraiyan police station area of the district on
March 21, 2011. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 20,000 on the accused,
Dhruv Sahni, a resident of Akauna village in the district, who is lodged in the
Motihari central jail since his arrest in 2011. "Additional district and
session judge-14 D N Yadav awarded capital punishment to Sahni, holding that
this was among the rarest of the rare cases and the accused deserved maximum
punishment for the inhuman and heinous crime," East Champaran government
counsel Subhash Chandra Yadav said. Altogether nine prosecution witnesses,
including the doctor who conduct autopsy of the victim, were examined by the
court during the trial. According to the prosecution, the incident happened on
the evening of Holi festival day in 2011. The victim, who was playing outside
her house, was taken to a nearby field by the accused. There, he raped her and
slit her throat with a knife, As Reported By Hindustan Times.
According to the Newspaper, He later attempted to obscure evidence by smearing
the body with wet mud. The incident occurred when the villagers, along with the
victim's family, were watching TV at a nearby house. When they returned home,
they found the girl the girl missing. Later, a missing person case was lodged
at Chiraiya police station against unidentified person(s). The next day, the
police recovered the body from a maize field and arrested Sahni.
(source: hindustantimes.com)
NORWAY:
Rough Justice? Norwegians More Approving of Death Penalty
Nearly every 3rd Norwegian man - and close to 1/4 of the total population - is
positive about the introduction of the death penalty, a new survey has
revealed. Human rights activists found this tendency alarming in a country that
has not had civil executions for a century and a half.
In a survey carried out by pollster Respons Analyse on behalf of Amnesty
Norway, over 1,000 Norwegians were asked to consider the following claim: "I am
against capital punishment, regardless of the crime committed."
A total of 23 % of the respondents said they disagree with the claim.
Additionally, a marked difference between the sexes was discovered. While only
15 % of Norwegian women supported the death penalty, 31 % of men were in favor
of it, national broadcaster NRK reported.
Amnesty Norway Secretary General John Peder Egenaes was surprised by the
numbers. By his own admission, he believed that many more of his compatriots
were categorically against the death penalty.
"These are alarming numbers. They indicate that we need a change of attitude
among Norwegian men," Egenaes said, wondering whether it was still a given for
a man to have such a "tough" attitude. "Do women have a different, more
humanistic view of life and death than men?" he asked rhetorically.
A similar survey was conducted by the Dagbladet newspaper in 2011, shortly
after the terrorist attacks in Oslo's government quarter and at a Labor youth
camp on the island of Utoya. The daily concluded that Norwegians did not want
Anders Behring Breivik to be executed, as only 16 % of the population said they
were in favor of the death penalty, which was ultimately rejected by 68 %.
Historian Bard Larsen of the think tank Civita ascribed the change to a
toughening of the narrative in the society.
"The rawer the society, the likelier people are to favor the death penalty,"
Bard Larsen ventured.
Capital punishment was first eradicated in 1905 and fully abolished in 1979,
before finally being prohibited by the Constitution in 2014.
In practice, the last peacetime execution was carried out in 1876. However,
several war criminals were executed after WW2 and during the Nazi occupation,
including Norway's notorious collaborator Vidkun Quisling. The last execution
was thus carried out in 1948, by firing squad.
The sentence of life imprisonment is restricted to the military penal code. In
peacetime, a maximum determinable sentence of 21 years is applied. In practice,
however, only a small percentage of prisoners serve longer than 14 years.
Prisoners are usually rewarded with unsupervised parole for weekends after
serving 1/3 of their sentences and are eligible for an early release after
serving 2/3 of their sentence.
(source: sputniknews.com)
IRELAND:
The death penalty and The Exonerated----Acclaimed play about to have its 1st
staging in Galway
THE EXONERATED, hailed as "an artful and moving evening of documentary theatre"
by Variety, in its examination of the lives and experiences of six people
exonerated from death row, has its 1st staging in Galway this month.
Written by Jessica Blank and Eric Jensen, the production will feature Sunny
Jacobs, an American death row exoneree who will be playing herself, and Peter
Pringle, an Irishman, also exonerated from a death sentence, playing the role
of Gary Gauger, who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents. Also in
the cast are Lara Campbell, Lelia Campbell, Cormac Culkeen, Sharon Murphy,
Bernard McNamara, Iback Lidamlendo, Donald Uviase, Son Gyoh, Orla McGovern, and
Darragh O'Brian.
The production is a fundraiser for The Sunny Centre in Connemara, founded in
2015 by Jacobs and Pringle as a healing centre for fellow exonerees from around
the globe. Sunny served 17 years in Florida before her release and Peter served
nearly 15 years in Ireland before his release. They married 6 years ago.
(source: advertiser.ie)
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