Friday Forum opposes death penalty:
Death penalty distracts from real need
Friday Forum is deeply disturbed at the prospect of judicial
executions taking place again in Sri Lanka after a gap of nearly 40
years. This, we believe, an understandable but simplistic and
counter-productive reaction to horrible crimes. It is a measure that
will divert attention from the real need, which is to seek why and how
these appalling things are occurring, and then take preventive action.
The true incentive to crime is that perpetrators feel that they can get
away with it. The real deterrent is the likelihood that one will be
found out, arrested, tried, convicted and punished. The remedy is
improving the criminal justice system - better crime prevention, better
crime detection, better investigation, improved prosecutions and trial
procedures.
It is in the most horrific and pitiable cases, where there is huge
pressure on the police, both by their superiors and by the public, to
show results, that arrests of innocent persons and miscarriages of
justice are most likely to take place. Do we have enough faith in our
police, our prosecutors, our judges, our defence lawyers, our courts,
our public from whom juries are drawn, to be sure that arrests and
prosecutions and convictions will never be influenced by inefficiency or
carelessness or political pressure or corruption? Or just plain bona
fide mistake? That perjured evidence will never be acted on? Even under
the best criminal justice system, wrong convictions are bound to take
place. Because convictions depend on human beings and no human
institution is infallible. Of course this applies to all criminal
proceedings and consequent punishments. But the death penalty is in a
category of its own because it is irreversible. Recent judicial reviews
of criminal convictions in the UK have revealed many instances of unsafe
convictions. In some, the accused had been hanged. In others, they would
have been hanged had the death penalty not been abolished.
This is not a matter to be decided by public opinion or even by
majority votes in Parliament, understandably inflamed by ghastly sexual
attacks and murders. It is a matter for leaders to show true leadership
after sober assessment. Many countries have abolished capital punishment
and have not experienced a subsequent rise in crime. Many moral leaders
and eminent Sri Lankans have opposed the death penalty; the King of
Bhutan abolished it as contrary to Buddhism. It is also surely
significant that the death penalty is not included in the punishments
that the International Criminal Court can impose for even the most
heinous of war crimes.
Professor Savitri Goonesekere and Dr. Geedreck Usvatte-aratchi on
behalf of the Friday Forum
The Friday Forum is an informal and self-financed group dedicated to
democracy, good governance, human rights and the rule of law. It has for
over five years sought to alert the public on issues concerning the
rights of the citizen, work on a non-partisan basis and have been
critical of both the Government and Opposition. |