Britain's campaign to see capital punishment abolished globally and its pledge to exercise moral leadership on this issue reflects a long standing philosophical commitment to this doctrine. The United Kingdom’s strategy highlighted by the British Foreign Office, through its embassies worldwide on the “World Day Against the Death Penalty” (October 10), draws upon its own record of abolition since 1965. Britain is working towards a a global moratorium on executions by 2015. The key objectives of the policy are the protection of British citizens overseas facing the death sentence, extradition of accused persons to countries without the risk of execution, and exerting influence on third parties to refrain from carrying out sentences in important cases. Accordingly, the strategy is to get the hardline states to reduce the number of offences that attract this penalty, while encouraging incremental steps towards a total abolition. These include refraining from executing juveniles, pregnant women and the insane, besides guaranteeing the right to fair trial, appeal, and seek a pardon or commutation. In addition, pressure will be mounted on the United Nations for getting another resolution passed by the General Assembly on global moratorium.
The results so far speak for themselves. Over the past decade, 22 countries have scrapped this ultimate punishment with the number of abolitionist states now standing at 95 including the entire European continent except Belarus. Retentionist countries are down to 58, but impressive changes have been recorded here too. In China, the Supreme People’s Court now requires this harshest penalty to be issued only in extreme cases, and death by firing squads is soon to be replaced by lethal injection. In the United States, the Supreme Court is to rule on the constitutionality of lethal injection in the context of the 8th Amendment. Some 35 countries have imposed a moratorium on executions. Russia represents an outstanding example; the constitutional court having indefinitely extended in 2009 the freeze on carrying out sentences. As for India, a declaration of a moratorium would be a realistic next step after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in 1980 that a death sentence can be given only if the alternative of a life sentence is unquestionably foreclosed. Vigorous steps need to be taken to lay out a global consensus on the elimination of the death penalty from the statute books of nations.
Keywords: capital punishment, death sentence
The recent Coimbatore Kidnap incident shows the torture suffered by the unsuspecting children, and their parents. By abolishing death penalty, it will only help increase such incidents in our society. Criminals will never fear about extreme consequences, which can deter them from committing the crime. Hence, death penalty should stay.
The fear of the death penalty has probably never been a deterrent for heinous crimes being committed in this country; If it had really struck fear in would-be criminals, we wouldn't be experiencing the current state of affairs in crime prevention. Its the lack of enforcement and the near certainty of not getting convicted in a legal system that has too many loop holes. While the abolition of the death penalty needs to be pursued with earnestness, viable alternatives should be considered , for example the term of life sentence should be extended from 14 years to a 'real' life term, coupled with steps to tighten enforcement.
There is no truth, lies or statistics to prove that death penalty has reduced the heinous crime in the society. Life imprisonment till the person dies is possibly more effective that giving a lethal injection. Staying in a prison till a person dies is like dying everyday. They become a "role model" who should be interviewed regularly so that a person before he commits a crime thinks about it.
With honour killing, hired killing, political killing being the order of the day in this country, death penalty stands as the only form deterrence to all those hooligans in this society. Abolishing death penalty is like giving an open invitation to all those criminals to indulge in crime without fear or remorse. The idea that somebody can commit a heinous but still can be considered for rehabilitation itself shows how indifferent and insensitive we have become to crime in the name of freedom and human rights.
Have those who support death penalty ever thought of the trauma the spouse, children, other relatives and friends of the person who is awarded such a penalty are made to go through? Do they deserve such a punishment? One would of course expect a counter question: what about the trauma of the relatives and friends of the victim of the person's crime? The answer to this is that no civilized society believes in the dictum of "an eye for an eye".
Briton's compaign for elimination globally of capital punishment is praiseworthy. Taking the life of any individual is not a sign of being civilised.It is particularly reprehensible when it is State sponsored. Accordingly, it is imperative that it does not find a place in thae statue book of any civilised nation. As you suggest, declaration of a momratorium brooks no delay in our country.
Your editorial on the above subject denounces awarding of the death penalty. In certain rarest of the rare cases like terrorism acts, espionage etc., death penalty should stay. Also acts of rape and murder of minors also requires death penalty. If death penalty is abolished such crimes will be on the increase and it will be hard to manage the situation by the state police force.
If death penalty is abolished, then law enforcement agents or national security forces would finish off their suspects in the field without waiting for a day in the court. There will be fewer cases to prosecute and fewer lessons to learn. If Kasab is given a life term without the death penalty, his friends may kidnap civilians and ask for Kasab to be released. You may recall the time when India had to let off hard core killers lodged in Tihar to secure the freedom of passengers on an Indian Airlines flight.
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