By: Natalie Shobana Ambrose
theSun, Malaysia (pg 12)
July 26th, 2012
An eye for an eye seems to be a
fair punishment for many and yet as Gandhi said, it also makes the whole world
go blind. For some, the death penalty is imperative and should not be
abolished, yet countries like Singapore that have the mandatory death penalty
for homicide and drug trafficking, are moving towards removing the mandatory
clause but not abolishing capital punishment totally. This allows judges the
discretion of life imprisonment and caning as alternatives to mandatory
execution.
Some may
cringe and interpret this as leniency but the trend against capital punishment
has become stronger especially after the 2007 UN General Assembly vote towards
the abolition of capital punishment on the grounds of protecting human rights.
This has led to a call for (at the very least) moratoriums and restrictions on
the death penalty and Singapore is heading in that direction, and we in
Malaysia are now talking about it a little bit more for now.
Perhaps it
is hard to find that compassion when we know the extent of what drugs do to
people. Let’s not talk about the growing list of international celebrities who
have died of drug abuse, but of the people trafficking and addicts. There is a
chilling sign that drives the point home of mandatory capital punishment in
Singapore. It reads 17.9 years old – Imprisonment, 18.0 years old – DEATH.
14.9g heroin – Imprisonment, 15.0g heroin – DEATH.
One has to
wonder what happens if there is an error of judgment and the term mandatory
allows for no other alternative but to put to death a suspected drug
trafficker. Will we be able to wash our hands of an unjust irreversible
execution?
Other
factors to consider are whether the respect for due process is guaranteed,
access to effective legal representation, if the possibility to seek pardon of
commutation is possible and if the provisions of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights have been respected.
For years,
the death penalty was put in place as a deterrent, but how effective has this
been?
Eleven
years ago Portugal chose to decriminalise every drug. It didn’t legalise drugs
but decided to not punish addicts rather treat them. Of course we’re talking
about two different things – traffickers and users. Yet the underlying need for
compassion and to look at the issues from a different perspective remains.
In
Portugal, decriminalisation wasn’t the only thing that saw a decline in drug
abuse, there was a holistic approach to include a “confluence of treatment and
risk reduction policies”. In the case of Portugal, users and abusers are not
dealt with as delinquents but treated as a public health service taking their
case out of the criminal justice system and into a special court which
comprises psychologists, social workers and legal experts judging each offender
as a unique case. It’s a lot of work not to mention funding needed but it means
that now Portugal drug rates are on the lowest tier compared to other EU
states. Of course this is a positive example and there are many failed attempts
but it still serves as a constructive model.
Perhaps its
time that we in Malaysia start a societal dialogue on the issue, as there is
not much information readily available and alarm bells ring and images conjured
of a rough state with criminals running around when the words “abolish capital
punishment” is mentioned. We can seek alternatives?
We tend to
associate drugs with a lower level of society and trick ourselves into thinking
that drug abuse, drug distribution and trafficking affect a small limited part
of society and the lower-income group, yet this is not true. For years, cocaine
has been known as the rich man’s drug and there are notorious examples of
bankers and politicians (to name a few professions) in the developed/developing
world who have easy access to such drugs.
There is no
denying that innocent people are put to death even in today’s modern world,
maybe it’s time that we at the very least invoke a moratorium to ensure that
the irreversible mandatory death penalty does not bind us to take away a
person’s right to life.
Natalie believes to be a just, democratic and progressive
nation,
we must at the very least drop the word mandatory and
head towards a more humane alternative
Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
