Is it time to abolish the death penalty

Is it time to abolish the death penalty

News:

The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction on the immediate execution of four death row convicts in the December 16 gang rape and murder case.

Important Analysis:

• The Supreme Court in 2018 had upheld its verdict of awarding the death penalty to the convicts in the December 2012 gang rape case.
• Recently, Supreme Court said no to early execution of Nirbhaya convicts after the convicts had pleaded for commuting their death sentence on the ground that they were not properly represented by lawyers during the trial and vital.
• However, the debate has been rising in India whether the death penalty is a cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

Argument against the death penalty

• Against the fundamental rights – The death penalty goes against our most basic human right – the right to life protected under article 21.
• It does not deter crime – Countries who execute commonly cite the death penalty as a way to deter people from committing crime. This claim has been repeatedly discredited, and there is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment.
• It is often used within skewed justice systems – In many cases recorded by Amnesty International, people were executed after being convicted in grossly unfair trials, on the basis of torture-tainted evidence and with inadequate legal representation.
• It is discriminatory. The weight of the death penalty is disproportionally carried by those with less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds or belonging to a racial, ethnic or religious minority. This includes having limited access to legal representation, for example, or being at greater disadvantage in their experience of the criminal justice system.
• It is used as a political tool – The authorities in some countries, for example Iran and Sudan, use the death penalty to punish political opponents.
• It is irreversible and mistakes happen – Execution is the ultimate, irrevocable punishment: the risk of executing an innocent person can never be eliminated.Between January 1, 2000 and June 31, 2015, the Supreme Court imposed 60 death sentences. It subsequently admitted that it had erred in 15 of them (25%).
• Economic Burden – Abolishing the death penalty will ease and will reduce the tax-payer’s burden. The annual cost of maintaining a prisoner is about ₹30,000. The hangman is paid more, and it also save on the protracted litigation that death cases involve.
• The structural flaws in our criminal procedure and criminal justice system are most pronounced in death penalty cases. Due to biases in criminal investigations, the marginalized whether by religious and caste denominations, or class are disproportionately subject to the death penalty.
• Delays in the criminal justice system disproportionately affect those who suffer the tyranny of the uncertainty of their life.
• In 2015, the Law Commission called for abolition of the death penalty for ordinary crimes, and activists continue to argue for abolishing it altogether.
• Individual Philosophy – Main question arises if the killing of a human being depend on the philosophy of a particular individual. For instance Presidents (S. Radhakrishnan and A.P. J. Abdul Kalam) refused to reject mercy petitions, while others, readily denied clemency
• In the past life imprisonment sufficed for the 99.99% of victims’ families, then the question arises why not for the minuscule fraction in whose name the death penalty is demanded.
• Global Practice – Since most civilized nation has abolished it, India certainly does not need it as it serves no purpose.

Argument in favor of Death Penalty

• Geopolitical circumstances – India’s neighborhood is not peaceful, unlike Scandinavia. Cases of violent terror are constant reminders of the need to protect national stability by ensuring appropriate responses to such actions, and the death penalty forms part of the national response.
• Impact on Criminals – A punishment cannot be judged by its impact on criminals but by its impact on those who are still innocent.
• Rarest of the rare crime – The punishment is not arbitrary because it comes out of a judicial process in rarest of the rare crime.
• Fundamental in nature – Those who defend the death penalty often do it on the basis of retributive justice. However, the retention of the death penalty is far more fundamental than an arrogant state interest to seek revenge.
• Law commission report – Even the Law Commission of India in its 35th Report called for its retention in order to see its impact on a new republic and the more recent 262nd report could not recommend the punishment’s absolute abolition.
• Constitutional skepticism – In 1980, in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, a Constitution Bench articulated that death must only be imposed where the alternative option is unquestionably however the question is, under what circumstances are the retributive and deterrent effects of a life in prison is insufficient that death is the only answer. 

• International Scenario
  • According to Amnesty International report, 140 nations have abolished death penalty for all crimes and 59 nations still retain it. All western countries except USA have abolished death penalty mainly on humanitarian grounds.
  • In 2017, most known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan. China remains the world’s top executioner.
• International Protocols:
  • Over time, the international community has adopted several instruments that ban the use of the death penalty, including the following:
  • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.
  • European Convention on Human Rights, concerning the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances.
  • The Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in favor to abolish the Death Penalty.

Way Forward:

• The architect of the Constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar, admitted in the Constituent Assembly that “people may not follow non-violence in practice but they certainly adhere to the principle of nonviolence as a moral mandate which they ought to observe as far as they possibly can.” With this in mind, he said, “the proper thing for this country to do is to abolish the death sentence altogether.”
• Considering the legal, ethical and psychological underpinnings of death penalty, India-the land of ahimsa must move forward in accordance with the roadmap stipulated by The Law Commission of India.