Gomes, left, and Nicholson
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
THE ABOLITION of the death penalty in Jamaica could be a reality, despite the country's soaring crime rate.
Minister of Justice and Attorney-General A. J. Nicholson, said Friday that with landmark rulings in two cases by the United Kingdom-based Privy Council, it will make it even more difficult for a person to be hanged.
"The time will come in Jamaica when the abolition of the death penalty will have to be placed squarely on the table. That is the way in which the wind is blowing across the globe," Mr. Nicholson told The Sunday Gleaner.
He was referring to the Privy Council's July 7 ruling in the case of Lambert Watson and the 1994 Pratt/Morgan case. In the former, the Privy Council ruled this month that the mandatory death sentence imposed on persons convicted of capital murder was discretionary.
MITIGATION PLEAS
Those convicted now have the opportunity to make mitigation pleas and call witnesses before they are sentenced. It is the judges who will have to decide what sentence should be imposed.
In the Pratt/Morgan case 10 years ago, the Privy Council ruled that prisoners who were on death row for five or more years should have their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
There are over 30 persons on death row in Jamaica.
The Minister said based on the ruling in Watson's case, the Government will have to take immediate steps to pass legislation so that local judges can have "legislative platform" to impose the proper penalty.
The Jamaican Bar Association does not support hanging and from as far back as July 5 last year passed resolutions calling for the total abolition of the death penalty.
Attorney-at-Law Arlene Harrison Henry, president of the Jamaican Bar Association said Friday that the association was pleased with the decision in the Watson case.
Carolyn Gomes, executive director of human rights group Jamaicans for Justice says that that organisation has no stance on the death penalty. She told The Sunday Gleaner that in the next few months JFJ would be meeting to take a position on the issue.
PROVISIONS
Mr. Nicholson spoke of provisions the Government will have to make in wake of the Lambert Watson case.
"It means then that the Government will have to bring proposed legislation to Parliament to amend the Offences Against the Person Act to give the court a discretion to impose the sentence of death or some lesser penalty such as a term of imprisonment and also to impose on judges the duty to hear any mitigating circumstance that might influence the punishment they would pass," he said. "And that legislation has to be entered upon very quickly because there are a number persons on death row who will now have to have their cases reviewed."
