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| Sunday, 28 November 2004 |
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Features |  |
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Death penalty and human rights by Dhanapala Weerasekera While the vast majority of people in this country from all walks of life commend and approve the decision to re-impose the death penalty or rather to implement it once it is judicially imposed, as expected by many, the Human Rights Commission has fulfilled their obligation to the position they hold by expressing their opposition to this decision. The examples they quote as proof that the death penalty does not reduce murder are the United States of America and Nigeria. They are apparently not conversant with the statistics of the large number of our close neighbours such as Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan just to mention a few where the imposition of the death penalty has resulted in a big reduction of crimes such as murder, drug dealing, rape and other major crimes. They show concern about the human rights of persons sentenced after lengthy Judicial inquiries for offences such as planned contract killings, rape and murder of women ranging from young school going girls to old grandmothers, enriching themselves by importing and distributing drugs to our youth an act which is itself a violation of their very future. Some of the offenders and offences committed by the persons whose human rights are of a grave concern to mention just a few recent incidents include the planned murder of a whole family one by one including the returning university student who was gang raped before killing her, the rape and killing of a young school girl to punish her father who owed them some money, the rape and murder of a young bride of a police officer's son an Indian girl who had just arrived in our country for her honeymoon and to start life in this country in which she expected a happy life and many more similar cases too numerous to list. What about the human rights of the victims and their families? Human rights There are thousands of our children working almost in slavery in homes and in many work places. There are also thousands of children sold to the sex trade and subjected to various forms of abuse. What about the human rights of these thousands? Is it too much to expect the organisations that are so concerned about the right of life of those face punishment for destroying life to use a part of their valuable time and initiative some action to safeguard or win back for these thousands the human rights that they seem doomed to lose for all time? There is also an unfortunate and irresponsible trend to label many organised murders as just gangland killings and do little about these. There are also many murders which are listed as revenge killings where we see several instances where a murder accused is murdered when he comes out of jail after serving his term. This is a clear instance of my main argument that where the punishment meted out is not proportionate to the gravity of the offence, there will always be the danger of the aggrieved parties taking the law into their own hands and meting out what they feel is the due punishment. Those who lead gangs and amass wealth do so not to die but to live well and build more power. It is a tested and known fact that most of these drug kings mafia leaders and those who hire killers are themselves cowards and the one thing they fear is death. It is easy today to offer a few millions to hired killers to get a job done because the risk is worth it as far as they are concerned. They are assured that everything will be looked after and even if they are caught there is money for any litigation and at the worst they will get a jail sentence and hopingly have enough money to enjoy facilities in jail and come out at the end and be rich. This is where unfortunately there are stories of influence being used to shorten their jail terms. Fear of the risk of a death sentence which is to be implemented will definitely reduce the type of crimes listed. Public confidence There are certainly other factors that have reduced public confidence in our legal system. Let me make myself clear by stating that I for one have great confidence and trust in the judiciary as a whole although like in some other sectors there will be the odd "bad one". There are some glaring instances where public confidence has been damaged. There seems to be no uniformity in the punishments given for similar offences and some instances are to say the least ridiculous and give ample reason for either doubting the intelligence of the person who gives the judgment or his integrity. There was a recent case where a person detected selling drugs to school children was produced in Courts and after he smilingly, almost expecting the lenient penalty was fined Rs. 250 and warned. When there is no semblance of any standard or close to standard, the offenders list judges as lenient or strict, heavy penalty decision makers or otherwise, subject to influence or not. Take the cases of illicit felling and transport of timber. Almost always the main culprit is never found and some employees face trial plead guilty and get off with a fine. There was a law or regulation which empowered to Courts to confiscate not only the illegally felled timber but also the lorry or tractor and equipment used in the offence. How many such confiscations have been made? All these factors taken together also contributes to the eroding of the respect the public had for the judiciary and more seriously the murder of the Judge known for his strict enforcement of the law and fearless and impartial interpretation and decisions as compared to some others whom the offenders did not fear contributed towards those responsible picking on this great man as their target. They saw no other way to prevent him from doing justice and correctly interpreting the law and the seriousness of each offence and they knew he could not be bought over or influenced and with only a risk of a jail sentence the result is what the country and the judicial system has suffered by his murder. Political interference As for the statement about political interference, while I do agree that there are instances of political pressure specially on police and hardly ever of the judiciary, this unfortunately is overplayed by the media and contributes towards the undermining of the very parliamentary democracy they profess to protect. To my knowledge more than many others alive today political corruption dates back to the pre-independence days, bit cases though few in number and political interference was also a fairly common occurrence during our early period of independence. Today specially after globalisation and money power and with the increase in activities and opportunities corruption is much more and this is made much more glaring with the media doing their duty by exposing offences of corruption while in those old days the only media was controlled by persons who preferred to sweep these under the carpet or cover up. While much has to be done to save our country from the dangers we face, let us judge the character of our leaders and their ability to face facts rather than allow various influences and pressures to influence them in making the death penalty mandatory for certain listed offences and even more important, the Judges must be free to give their studied verdict which should be final and not subject to further decisions by non-judicial authorities and more importantly, built in safeguards to prevent any miscarriage of justice is also urgently required. Immediate action should be taken to amend the laws to introduce a system of appeals against a sentence and if necessary even creating a special higher Court on the lines of the Privy Council as a Court of Final Appeal and provision for appointment and promotion of Judges directly by the Judicial Commission or on the recommendations of such a commission. Whatever action is taken it should be based on the situation in this country. The wish of the people of our country and to suit our requirements without being influenced by requests and statements of outside agencies or countries which are unable to even put their own houses to order. The European Union as an example has failed to persuade some of it's own member countries to do away with the death penalty for certain specified offences but advise smaller countries like ours facing bigger problems not to implement the death penalty. Let us hope that at least in this matter our political leaders will be big enough not to make a political issue of this but get together and make a decision in consultation with specially with leaders of the legal profession and sober minded accepted leaders of society. (The writer is a former MP) |
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