WE WELCOME the ruling of the Court of Appeal that the death penalty is not unconstitutional. This, as we see it, is an affirmation of what the law says - that the penalty for murder is death - a penalty that has been duly pronounced by the courts but not implemented since February 1988.
We have no doubt that the controversy about hanging will continue, however, if only because of the persistent lobbying of human rights advocates here and abroad against the practice.
Indeed even as one panel of appellate justices headed by the president, Mr Ian Forte, had handed down their unanimous ruling another panel which had heard a different murder case brought forth a somewhat different view. Mr Justice Downer in this instance affirmed that the Offences Against the Person Act, which prescribes the death penalty, is constitutional but that the penalty itself is not mandatory.
No doubt influenced by the international campaign against the death penalty, Parliament had amended the Offences Against the Person Act in 1992, in effect creating two categories of murder, with "capital murder" attracting the mandatory sentence of hanging.
It is noteworthy that the Appeal Court ruling has emphasised that it is the extremely violent murder cases over the past 12 years that have influenced Parliament to retain the death penalty.
It is significant that the case dealt with by the Ian Forte panel had been referred to the United Kingdom Privy Council. The Privy Council dismissed the appeal against conviction but a supplementary petition contending that "the mandatory sentence of death was unconstitutional" was sent back for a ruling by the Appeal Court.
The Privy Concil may well have been influenced by the criticisms about its recent rulings that have hamstrung implementation of the death penalty. Hence the Appeal Court has pointedly cited current conditions of violence in its ruling as it acknowledged parliamentary retention of the death penalty.
One of the main arguments against the death penalty is that it is not a deterrent factor. It is a moot point but we tend to the view that calculated capital murder is influenced by the fact that nobody convicted in the past 14 years has faced the gallows.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
