December 9
MALAYSIA:
Perlis DAP breaks ranks, wants Putrajaya to retain death penalty
The federal government, of which the DAP is part of, may be planning to abolish
the death penalty.
However, the party is facing objections from within, with Perlis DAP today
approving a motion against the abolition of capital punishment.
The motion was approved unanimously at the Perlis DAP convention, according to
Kwong Wah Yit Poh.
Perlis DAP chief Teh Seng Chuan said the abolition of death penalty would be
unfair to the families of murder victims.
"We are the 1st state within the party to object to the abolition of the death
penalty.
"Even though the abolition of the death penalty came from the federal
government but we will object to any policy that we feel is unsuitable," he was
quoted as saying.
Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Liew Vui Keong, who is in charge of
law, had said Putrajaya had plans for the total abolition of the death penalty.
However, there had been some public pushbacks. Human rights groups have urged
the government to stay the course.
(source: malaysiakini.com)
INDIA:
CJI Dipak Misra spotlights the law on death penalty
A series of Supreme Court decisions after Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi
took over as top judge has seen the Supreme Court veer away the death penalty
and point out lapses in the way justice is administered in death penalty cases.
For one, Chief Justice Gogoi has been heard repeatedly admonishing frivolous
Public Interest Litigation (PIL) litigants for wasting the time of the court.
The CJI has expressed annoyance at how his court is straddled with such PILs
when judges ought to hear the under-100 pending death penalty references.
Uncertain prisoners
“Every morning, these people wake up wondering when the court will hear them,”
the Chief Justice said, expressing the uncertainty of prisoners in death row.
The CJI said such cases are the priority for the court.
Recently, the apex court put an end to its own practice of dismissing death
penalty appeals in limine, without even assigning a reason for the decision.
Death row convicts deserve an explanation as to why the highest court of the
land had concluded that they deserved to hang for their crime.
“Special leave petitions filed in cases where the death sentence is awarded by
the courts below should not be dismissed without giving reasons, at least qua
death sentence,” a three-judge Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri, Ashok Bhushan and
Indira Banerjee observed in a recent judgment.
Reasons for remission not beyond judicial review: experts
The Bench’s decision came in a review petition filed by Babasheb Maruti Kamble,
who was condemned to the gallows for murder.
? Kamble had filed a review against the apex court’s earlier dismissal of his
appeal against death with a 2-line order which merely said: “Delay condoned.
Dismissed.” The apex court also laid down that in death penalty cases, the
court was obliged to independently examine the case, “unbound by the findings
of the trial court and the High Court."
'Time-honoured'
"Such an approach is the time-honoured practice of this court,” the Supreme
Court has observed.
Justice Kurian Joseph, in his last solo opinion before retirement as Supreme
Court judge, questioned the way courts decide that a person cannot be reformed
and thus sentenced to death.
“His good conduct in prison or the fact that he has engaged in studies inside
the prison walls is not considered a mitigating factor against death penalty,”
Justice Kurian told The Hindu.
(source: The Hindu)
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