Rick Halperin
Fri, 5 Dec 2008 17:20:43 -0600
Dec. 5 JAMAICA: Lawmakers Vote to Retain Death Penalty In the end, not even an appeal from the internationally respected South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu made a difference. By a comfortable margin of 34 to15 with 10 abstentions, Jamaican lawmakers voted Tuesday to retain the death penalty. The conscience vote was the 2nd in Jamaica's modern history regarding the abolition of the death penalty. The 1st time, in 1979, 24 of the 44 members supported the motion. Figures provided by the Correctional Services Department indicate that 142 Jamaicans have been executed in the 26 years between Independence in 1962 and 1988 when the last state execution took place. There are now 40 convicted killers on death row. Tutu had joined a number of local, regional and international organisations in urging a vote against the death penalty. In a statement issued through the human rights organisation Amnesty International, which strongly opposes capital punishment, Tutu said while Jamaica's high murder rate had made such a decision difficult, studies have shown that in some countries the death penalty has been used as a tool of repression against the poor and racial or ethnic minorities. "It is imposed and inflicted arbitrarily. It is an irrevocable punishment, resulting inevitably in the execution of people innocent of any crime. It is a violation of fundamental human rights," he said adding that "Even the most callous of murderers amongst us retain their human rights." Last week, 14 Caribbean Anglican Bishops passed a resolution opposing the death penalty and urged the church, state and civil society to deal with the root causes of crime and violence. "The death penalty has not been proved to be a deterrent," the Bishops of the Church in the Province of the West Indies said in a statement following their meeting in the Bahamas. They said they were calling "our people to stand with us in our opposition to the death penalty." But with the murder toll exceeding 1,300 so far this year, even the religious community has been divided on the issue. Rev. Terrence Brown, the former head of the Spanish Town Ministers Fraternal, has said he would willingly take on the job of putting the noose around the necks of criminals, while another outspoken clergyman, Rev. Al Miller, insists that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder. "Anyone who says it is not a deterrent is dumb," declared the senior pastor of the Fellowship Tabernacle Church in Kingston. But the Public Theology Forum, an ecumenical group of local ministers from different denominations, said while the public is deeply frustrated because our leaders cannot find the way to fix the social, moral and economic crises facing the nation, state executions were not the way forward. "A just punishment by the state is that which helps the criminal to take full moral responsibility for his/her life-denying behaviour. Since punishment by death terminally removes the opportunity for any moral reform of the individual, then the death penalty cannot be considered a just punishment," the group said in a statement. The debate in Jamaica has not been lost on the international community. In a statement published in the local media, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, said Europe "encourages public debate, strengthening public opposition and putting pressure on retentionist countries to abolish the death penalty, or at least introduce a moratorium as a first step." Immediately after the vote was taken in Parliament, a dejected Dr. Carolyn Gomes, executive director of the human rights group Jamaicans for Justice, told reporters "this vote is really disappointing." "The vote was not unexpected, what was disappointing was the width of the margin," she said, also referring to the conduct of the parliamentarians during the debate. "This is a matter of life and death, this is not a matter that invites bad behaviour and shouting and that was the behaviour of some of our parliamentarians. It was appalling. We are talking about people's lives," she said. However, she believes that the vote is not likely to result in the resumption of hangings until the London-based Privy Council, the countrys highest court, issues its own ruling. "What we have is 1,500 murders per year and a clear-up rate of less than 40 %. What we need to do is catch the criminals and put in the social systems and support to prevent people from falling into lives of crime," Gomes added. Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who voted in support of retaining the death penalty, said that providing the Senate votes in a similar manner to the House of Representatives, he would also seek to eliminate the constitutional requirement that a death penalty appeal be concluded within 5 years of sentencing, or a condemned inmate's sentence must be commuted. His position is supported by the opposition People's National Party (PNP). In 1993, the Privy Council ruled that convicts who had been on death row for more than 5 years should have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Golding said the death penalty "is an appropriate penalty for someone who takes someone elses life in those cases that we define as capital murder" and he was confident that the judicial system could withstand international scrutiny. Golding, who had called on all legislators to vote with their conscience and not along party lines, said that as long as the Privy Council "is an avenue of appeal open to the persons, then I am satisfied that once somebody is convicted, then the death penalty should be carried out." A notable absentee from Tuesday's vote was the Leader of the Opposition Portia Simpson Miller, who had earlier indicated that an overseas assignment would prevent her from casting her ballot. But in her contribution to the debate last week, she had indicated that "if the vote is to retain the death penalty, I would like to suggest that we discard hanging as the method of carrying out the penalty." Simpson Miller's party has also proposed that the Governor General's Privy Council in Jamaica have the final say in granting pardons or reducing sentences, or referring cases back to court for further review. Meanwhile, the Jamaica Observer newspaper offered its own novel proposition. In an editorial Wednesday, the paper said that "among all the things the administration will need to consider, we suggest that it should seriously look at the possibility of sentencing people convicted of capital murder to life without the possibility of parole and putting them to work on the countrys infrastructure." (source: IPS News) MEXICO: MEXICO UNDER SIEGE----Some in Mexico want the death penalty reinstated-----The increase in slayings and kidnappings related to the nation's war on drug traffickers has created a climate of fear. Legal experts see too many obstacles to restoring capital punishment. Reporting from Mexico City -- Anger and frustration over rampant killings and kidnappings have ignited an improbable debate here over legalizing the death penalty, a punishment that has been effectively banned in Mexico for nearly half a century. Lawmakers agreed Thursday to hear arguments next week on a proposal to amend the Mexican Constitution to allow for capital punishment in a narrow number of cases. The initiative from Humberto Moreira, governor of the northern border state of Coahuila, would allow the death penalty for convicted kidnappers who killed or mutilated their victims. He said as far as the people of his state were concerned, the only issue was how to execute convicts, not whether to do so. It is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that the death penalty could be reinstated because of legal obstacles, experts said. But that is almost beside the point. Moreira has tapped into public panic over soaring crime, a climate of fear that has made law and order the country's No. 1 worry. Much of the bloodshed is related to Mexico's drug war, as government forces crack down on powerful traffickers and traffickers battle one another over pieces of the lucrative trade. But violence is spilling into ordinary society. Two recent kidnappings of children of affluent Mexicans -- one turned up dead and the other has not been found -- underlined the public's vulnerability. As much as the crimes themselves, the fact that there are few prosecutions -- impunity and no justice -- riles Mexican society. "If 98% of criminals escape prosecution for their crimes, it is clear that the population feels wounded and tends to support capital punishment," Gerardo Priego, a legislator from the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, told reporters. Moreira's initiative received quick support from several state governors from his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. But critics accused Moreira of demagoguery and of taking advantage of the public mood for political gain. Mexico City's Human Rights Commission said a return to state-administered executions would set the country back 200 years. "Behind this call [for the death penalty] is society's desperation over the climate of insecurity we are living in," said Alberto Herrera, head of the Mexico chapter of Amnesty International. "But the risk is it leads to calls for revenge. Times of desperation are the worst times to go for facile solutions." Reinstatement of the death penalty is unlikely for legal and political reasons. The last execution in Mexico was in 1961, coincidentally in Coahuila, the state where the current initiative originated. Capital punishment remained on the books, primarily within the military judicial system, but was unused and abolished in 2005. In 1981, Mexico signed a human rights treaty as part of the Organization of American States that dictated the death penalty, once eliminated, could not be revived. Furthermore, the PAN, which holds sway in Congress, says it opposes changing the constitution to allow capital punishment. Recent polls showed support for the death penalty surging to as much as two-thirds of the surveyed population. Miguel Carbonell, a constitutional law expert at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said that despite public outcry, the chance of imposing the death penalty, given the international treaties that Mexico signed, was "nil." "We are all very worried about the security situation and want strong measures," he said. "But the state cannot fall into the same criminal behavior as the criminals." In separate action Thursday, the lower house of Mexico's Congress approved a package of state security measures aimed at strengthening the government's ability to fight drug traffickers and organized crime. Key among the measures were provisions to prevent the infiltration of police forces by criminals. (source: Los Angeles Times)