July 15
SRI LANKA:
Execute them, says the Archbishop: Hang the lot, says Bodu Bala
pope----President Sirisena declares death to drug dealers in jail but does he
have the power to play judge and hangman
Coming from President Sirisena, well known for his rhetorical flourishes
spurred by his new found urge to portray himself as a no nonsense leader of
iron, his speech this Wednesday in Kandy when he declared he will sign the
death warrant and hang those convicted drug dealers sentenced to death by the
courts but commuted to life and spared the hangman's noose thereafter by him,
came as no surprise.
It was only to be expected. Given the failure of his advisors to bring to his
notice that he had no legal right to do so. Unless he wished to play judge,
jury and hangman all by himself and have his actions challenged in court.
President J. R. Jayewardene kept the death penalty in the constitution he
introduced in 1978. But given his vision of dawning a 'dharmishta yugaya' in
the land, he never signed the death warrant but commuted it to life. Though he
was forced to wage a war against the Tigers and order the Armed Forces to do
what they had to do to protect the unitary status of the nation, he did not
wish to have blood on his hands when it came to decreeing a man be hanged.
For the Buddhist law of karma does not recognise motive as justification. Nor
absolves a person from the act of taking the life not only of a human being but
of all beings, however commendable in human eyes it may appear to be, from the
consequences that will inevitably follow him life beyond life. The intention to
kill, coupled with the tools to kill a living being inexorably attracts the
natural law of cause and effect to take effect.
Since JR, all presidents of Lanka have dutifully observed this precept and
precedent and have commuted the death sentence issued by the courts to life
imprisonment. So has Sirisena. Until now when he declared this July 11,
"Although there are different opinions regarding capital punishment in a
Buddhist society, if a large number of criminal acts spread in such a society
despite religious sermons, it will be necessary to take some timely actions to
control crime." And proceeded to say, "I will sign the required orders to
execute capital punishment for convicted drug traffickers, who carried out
large-scale drug smuggling operations, while in detention."
"No matter how serious the crime committed, the death penalty is inadmissible"
POPE FRANCIS:
But does he have the legal right to do so?
The procedure in giving effect to President J. R. Jayewardene's inhibition to
personally condemn a man to death whatever his crime was is as follows:
Take the procedure involved. Before the President commutes the death sentence
to life imprisonment, he is required to call for reports from the Attorney
General and the Trial Judge and they are thereafter submitted to the Minister
of Justice who in turn submits them to the President with his advice whether or
not the execution should be carried out. It's only then the president must
decide whether or not to commute the sentence of death to one of life in jail.
Once he so decides, it's hard to see how he can possibly and arbitrarily
reverse his decision and reimpose the death sentence. It can only apply to
future cases, not to those presently in jail who have been given a reprieve
from death.
But once he decides between life and death and signs the imperial order - like
a Roman Caesar with the power over life and death to give the thumbs up or the
thumbs down at a gladiators' fight in a Roman arena, where the victor awaits
with sword held poised against the vanquished breast of his fallen foe and
looks toward the royal box for a thumbs up or thumbs down signal from Caesar
whether to plunge the sword in or sheath it - there are no grounds to revoke
it. Legally and morally.
For commutation of the death sentence to one of life imprisonment is not a stay
order on the death penalty.
For what he signs is not a decision that can be revoked or enforced at his
whim, fancy and pleasure but one which states with the presidential signature
and stamped with the presidential seal of office upon it, is that a man so
sentenced to death by the judicial courts shall not be hanged but be allowed to
live, albeit in a prison cell for the rest of his natural life.
Last year on February 4, President Maithripala Sirisena commuted 60 prisoners
who were on death row in jails to life imprisonment. There may have been drug
traffickers amongst those who received reprieve. Can the President by any means
revoke the commutation order he had signed on the recommendation of the then
Justice Minister and order they be hanged now because those drug pushers are
still dealing in drugs behind prison bars?
"I welcome the death penalty" ARCHBISHOP MALCOM
So much for the President's call for the resurrection of the gallows and its
noose to hang around the neck of those who he himself and other presidents
before him for the last 40 years had spared even though the courts had
sentenced them to death. But given his recent vacillations on many fronts,
perhaps it was only to be taken with a pinch of salt, as another expression of
a trouble mind.
The shock lay elsewhere and came like a bolt from the Heavens. When the head of
Lanka's Catholic Church, without any reason or rhyme, deemed fit to step forth
uninvited from his Archbishops' Palace, to join hands with Sirisena and
advocate judicial murder.
If coming from a politician such as Sirisena held no surprise to the masses
when he declared death to those who had been sentenced to hang whom he himself
had pardoned and given new lease of life to spend in jail, the call coming from
a cardinal in a red cassock representing the catholic church in Lanka, was - to
put it mildly - astonishing. And beyond belief. And perhaps against the stated
position the Holy See takes on the issue of the death penalty.
And, perhaps, ill advised like President Sirisena, the Archbishop of the
Catholic Church, His Eminence Cardinal Patabendige Don Albert Malcolm Ranjith,
rushed in where angels fear to tread. And perhaps by calling for the death
penalty to be revived and the offenders hanged, he hanged his own chances to
become the Third World's 1st South Asian Pope.
Two days after Maithripala Sirisena had declared his decision to revisit drug
dealers in prison and deliver to them the hangman's noose, the Archbishop of
Colombo, the head of the Catholic Church in Lanka, sauntered in unannounced to
give his gratuitous sermon from his pulpit. He said: "We welcome President
Sirisena's decision to execute drug traffickers who have been sentenced to
death. We will support Maithripala Sirisena's decision to subject those who
organise crime while being in the prison to death sentence."
Astonishing, isn't it that a man of God should call without qualm for the
resurrection of the hangman's gallows - for whatever reason - when his own
saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was arrested over the allegation
levelled at his door that he professed to be the King of the Jews. And given
the death penalty by the Romans due to the clamouring of rabid mob who demanded
his blood; and, after agreeing to the mobs demand, the 5th Prefect of the Roman
province of Judaea, Pontius Pilate washed his blood soaked hands in water to
cleanse his indelible sin, and crucified Jesus on the cross purely out of
political expediency.
"Hang the politicians too" BODU BALA BOSS
Funny, isn't it, that when Jesus intervened to prevent a woman accused of
adultery being stoned to death by stating 'he who is without sin, let him cast
the first stone', an archbishop should call for the death penalty? Especially
when the Holy Father of the Vatican Church the Archbishop represents in the
Lankan archdiocese, does not subscribe to his views on crime and punishment.
9 months ago, His Holiness Pope Francis presented the Catholic Church???s
infallible view. He declared that the death penalty, no matter how it is
carried out, "is, in itself, contrary to the Gospel."
Speaking at the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church at the
Vatican in October last year Pope Francis said, "The catechism's discussion of
the death penalty, already formally amended by St. John Paul II, needs to be
even more explicitly against capital punishment."
Capital punishment, he said, "heavily wounds human dignity" and is an "inhuman
measure."
"It is, in itself, contrary to the Gospel, because a decision is voluntarily
made to suppress a human life, which is always sacred in the eyes of the
Creator and of whom, in the last analysis, only God can be the true judge and
guarantor."
"The death penalty," he said, "not only extinguishes a human life, it
extinguishes the possibility that the person, recognising his or her errors,
will request forgiveness and begin a new life. In the past, when people did not
see any other way for society to defend itself against serious crime and when
'social maturity' was lacking, people accepted the death penalty as ???a
logical consequence of the application of justice'."
In fact, he said, the church itself believed that, and the death penalty was a
possible punishment in the Papal States. It was only in 1969 that Pope Paul VI
formally banned the death penalty.
"I am against resuming execution." MINISTER MANGALA
"Let us take responsibility for the past and recognise" that use of the death
penalty was "dictated by a mentality that was more legalistic than Christian,"
Pope Francis said. "Remaining neutral today when there is a new need to
reaffirm personal dignity would make us even more guilty."
The development of church teaching, Pope Francis insisted, is not the same as
contradicting or changing church teaching. "Tradition is a living reality and
only a partial vision would lead to thinking of 'the deposit of faith' as
something static."
"The word of God," he said, "cannot be saved in mothballs as if it were an old
blanket to protect against insects."
The Christian faith, he said, always has insisted on the dignity of human life
from the moment of conception to natural death. So, the church has a continuing
obligation to speak out when it realises something that was accepted in the
past actually contradicts church teaching.
"Therefore, it is necessary to reiterate that, no matter how serious the crime
committed, the death penalty is inadmissible, because it attacks the
inviolability and dignity of the person," Pope Francis said.
But to be fair to the Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith whose statement calling for
the revival of the death penalty may have been contrary to the present
Catechism as held by the present Pope in the Vatican and more in line with the
Lankan President, he also stated:
"We understand that even prison officers also support the criminals to organise
crime while in prison and therefore it is our belief that political leadership
of the country should carry out investigations and penalise the prison officers
as well if they are found helping the inmates to carry out various crimes."
What a pity he failed to confine himself to this statement instead of calling
for the death penalty contrary to the present declared position of his church
as expressed by his Pope "that, no matter how serious the crime committed, the
death penalty is inadmissible, because it attacks the inviolability and dignity
of the person."
But the Archbishop had company. And it came from one garbed in the Buddha's
saffron robe professing to practise the teachings of the Enlightened One who
had proclaimed that all life was sacred and that no one had the right morally
or legally to take the life of another and that included the life of all
beings.
Not to be outdone by the Archbishop???s call, Lanka's self elected Buddhist
Pope, Bodu Bala Sena Boss Galagodaaththe Gnanasara stepped in to add support to
the Archbishop???s call. Only he went further. He called for the execution not
only of drug dealers but also demanded that of the politicians. "Hang the lot",
he said at a televised news conference this week.
But the monk presently out on bail following his conviction last month for
intimidating a woman, was also not alone.
According to the Buddha Sasana Minister Gamini Jayawickrama Perera who readily
endorsed the President's call to revive the death penalty, the Mahanayakes and
the Anunayakas too backed the proposal to the full.
He said on Tuesday: "As the Ministry of Buddhasasana, I never take decisions on
my own. My Chief advisers are Mahanayakas, Anunayakas and Lekakadhikari Theras
including the Maha Sangha. The Maha Sangha had agreed to the decision taken by
the President and approved by Cabinet Ministers who had decided to implement
the death sentence for drug traffickers including those who have been already
sentenced to death in prisons."
The Buddha Sasana Minister added, "It should have been carried out 15 years
ago."
At the same time the President too had good company. On Thursday, he received
unexpected support from Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte who lauded him
for Lanka's plans to replicate the success of the Philippines' war on drugs.
President Duterte's spokesperson Harry Roque announced at a press conferance
held on Thursday, "Of course, we are happy that other countries have taken note
of our war on drugs and that they look upon us as best practice on dealing with
illegal drugs. So we appreciate that, but as of now, we still have no death
penalty. Well, I think, we have not reached the point where we will hang them.
We are still on the level of really using our police, the Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency, the National Bureau of Investigation and our political will
against drug pushers."
Of course, why need the death penalty, when Duterte's policy has been to order
his forces to kill any suspected drug dealer.
But one lone voice rang out from Sirisena's cabinet. The liberal voice of his
own Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera who was bold enough to express the
dissenting view. He said: "I am against resuming execution. What is needed is
to take action against the main culprits responsible for running the drug
cartels in the country. The ones that are in the prison are not the ring
leaders; they are just peddlers and 2nd level dealers. The big ones are hidden
behind charity work, affluent social work organisations and religious
organisations - we need a system to catch them with enforcing law and order in
full force."
Exactly. Statistics show the death penalty has not deterred murderers or
assassins from killing. Nor drug lords from drug trafficking. If the government
finds that convicted drug dealers are still trafficking in drugs whilst behind
bars, is the answer the reimposition of the death penalty or to prevent them
from doing so in prison?
For what is the credibility of the government's claim that they have brought
down the rate of crime in the country committed by those free and not under
constant surveillance when the government shamelessly announces - without
realising its import that it amounts to gross negligence - that they cannot
even control crime committed by those in government custody under a 24/7 prison
watch?
The question posed herewith is not to ask whether drug dealers should be hanged
or not but to ask whether the president has the legal power to reimpose the
death penalty on his own accord on those whose death sentences have been
commuted to life imprisonment; whether the Catholic Archbishop is right in
singing hymns of praise to the president's decision to reintroduce the death
penalty contrary to his own Pope, Pope Francis' stated view 'expressed just 9
months ago that 'no matter how serious the crime committed, the death penalty
is inadmissible;' whether it is right of a Buddhist monk, the Bodu Bala chief
Gnanasara to publicly call for the execution of not only drug dealers but
politicians too; whether it is right of the Buddha Sasana Minister to embrace
the death penalty and state that the Mahanayakes, too, support the move to
bring back the gallows and hang the lot contrary to not only the Buddha's
teachings and precepts but to the example he set when he embraced to the
Buddhist order a serial killer Angulimala who had killed 999 men and thereafter
guided him on the path to attain nirvana; and whether it is necessary for this
nation, after having being vegetarian for over 40 years to take to eating beef
again? In spite of Buddhism's first precept 'refrain from killing all beings'
and Catholicism's first commandment 'thou shall not kill'?
(source: Sunday Times)
******************
Society's approach to death penalty is a barometer of its humanity
"I take upon myself the rule of training to abstain from taking the life of
living beings." - The First Precept
My father, Mahanama Samaraweera MP, knew 2 people who were to be hanged for
murder.
They were from Matara, his electorate. So, like everyone else in the district,
he also knew something that most of the country didn't: these 2 individuals
were convicted and sentenced on false evidence. They were to go to the gallows;
to be hanged for crimes they had not committed.
The experience of his constituents despair, and the grave injustice inherent in
putting to death the innocent, may have stirred him into championing, as Deputy
Minister of Justice in the S.W.R.D. Banadaranaike's Cabinet, the abolition of
the death penalty.
He was successful, to a point. When the Government came to power in 1956,
Cabinet on its very first sitting, decided to do away with the death penalty.
A Commission of Inquiry and 2 years later, my father introduced the Capital
Punishment Act No. 20 in Parliament, which repealed the death sentence and
replaced it with life imprisonment.
Dr. Colvin R de Silva once observed that the simple fact that the death penalty
was irreversible was in itself a sufficient reason for its abolition.
Introducing the death penalty means that we, as a society, are absolutely
convinced that our judges, our prosecutors, our defence and our investigators -
people as prejudiced and muddled thinking as the rest of us - are infallible.
We must be convinced that they cannot make mistakes. For, if anyone of them
makes an error even once, and someone is wrongly sentenced to death, then their
blood will be on all our hands; for it is we, as legislators and citizens, who
would have permitted such injustice to occur.
In fact, it requires a certain collective arrogance as a society, perhaps even
megalomania, to take such irreversible steps even when we risk being wrong.
After all, most convictions, even with the miracles of modern science, as any
criminal lawyer will tell you, are hardly open-and-shut cases.
As memorably depicted in the film 12 Angry Men, there's often a wafer thin, and
sometimes invisible line, between reasonable doubt and guilt.
The law also changes over time: crimes punishable by death in the past, such
as, publicly disagreeing with the king, are now considered normal and valuable.
Imagine, if Nelson Mandela or our own N.M. Perera had been put to death rather
than imprisoned; subsequent changes in the law would not have brought them
back.
Because death, unlike the law, is absolute. While laws may change, one cannot
bring back one to life. Such uncertainty offers little comfort to judges,
legislators and through them citizens testing and questioning their conscience.
The death penalty also raises the question of whether we have the authority or
the right to take life in the first place. Dr. E. W. Adikaram did not vote as
long as the death penalty remained on the books, saying "I shall not directly
or indirectly get involved in taking the life of a fish, bird, insect or human
being."
Who are we to take the life of another, to decide that fathers and mothers,
sons and daughters, aunts and uncles are to die or not die?
In fact, just as much as the suicide rate is often used as a measure of social
health, one can think of a society's approach to the death penalty as a
barometer of its humanity.
For a society to calculatedly and systematically allow a human life to be
taken, speaks very poorly of its commitment to the sanctity of life and the
extent to which we have become brutalised by violence and war.
It could even be a case of the cobra effect, where an attempted solution to a
problem actually makes the problem worse. Reintroducing the death penalty
conveys the message that human life can and will be taken by other humans,
instead of emphasising that every life is sacred.
This could, in the long term, increase violence and brutality in society,
rather than halt it.
The death penalty, as researchers across the world have found, is applied
unfairly. It is the poor who cannot afford capable lawyers; the oppressed who
are discriminated against by the judges; the influential, who don't have
connections to bail them out, who will bear the brunt of this inhumane
legislation.
The rich, the powerful, the connected - the drug barons, the racketeers, the
corrupt - will not really have anything to fear.
In fact, the evidence of study after study, has pointed out that the death
penalty is not an effective deterrent. To put it simply: "there is no credible
evidence that capital punishment deters murder or makes us any safer".
This is why most countries have done away with the death penalty.
A survey of senior policemen across America, where the death penalty still
prevails in some states, found that they thought the death penalty was the
least effective deterrent available to them.
This view is confirmed by judicial, legal, policing and criminology experts.
Although there have been no comprehensive studies of the factors driving crime
in Sri Lanka, I would contend that the politicisation of the police, the
assault on the independence of the judicial system, political protection for
criminals and the general culture of impunity and corruption created over many
years have much more to do with the lack of deterrence than the lack of the
death penalty.
Therefore, if we want to really deter criminals we need to restore and empower
the judiciary and the police.
We need to ensure their independence from external pressure, staff them with
men and women of the highest integrity and ensure that the necessary resources
are granted to ensure that justice is swift and impartial.
No doubt, our nation faces an unprecedented threat of criminality. But that
problem is one too large and too grave for a morally repugnant, ineffective,
potentially self-defeating and simplistic solution like re-introducing the
death penalty.
It requires the replacement of the jungle law with the rule of law through an
effective and impartial judiciary and police force.
It also requires deeper reforms that prevent corruption, impunity and
politicisation. Without careful thought and deliberation, abandoning the
community of civilised and humane nations which do not take the life of their
citizens would not only be folly, it would also be deeply irresponsible.
Just as a Commission of Inquiry was appointed to study the removal of the death
penalty over 50 years ago, perhaps, the time has come to appoint another such
committee, comprising judges, policemen, lawyers, academics and even reformed
convicts, to thoroughly study the issue of criminality in our society and
provide us with real and lasting solutions to the problem of crime.
(source: Mangala Samaraweera is Minister of Finance and Mass Media. This
article first appeared in The Sunday Times in October 2015----Sunday Observer)
************************
Former SL cricket captain praises Sirisena over death penalty policy
Sri Lanka's former cricket captain T.M. Dilshan on Friday praised the
president, Maithripala Sirisena for deciding to implement the death penalty for
drug traffickers.
"There is no purpose in safeguarding human rights if we cannot save the
country. Cases of drugs use and child abuse has increased at an alarming rate
today. So is is essential to carry out the death sentence," Mr Dilshan was
quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying.
"Not only for drugs, it should be implemented for child abuse and rape cases,"
he said, adding that the decision should have been made a long time ago.
International human rights groups have condemned the decision by Sri Lanka's
cabinet, which was announced earlier this week by the ministry of Buddhasasana.
(source: Tamil Guardian)
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