OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN on National Security, Derrick Smith, has chided Justice Minister A.J. Nicholson for not doing his job properly: preventing convicted murderers from being hanged.
Mr. Smith, in a press release yesterday, blamed what he called the "incompetent leadership" of the Justice Ministry for the failure to hang convicted murderers.
The Opposition spokesman said he was responding to a statement Mr. Nicholson made recently, which suggested it was the Opposition's failure to cooperate with the Government in amending the Constitution that has prevented the resumption of hanging.
CARRYING OUT THE DEATH PENALTY
Referring to the Privy Council ruling in the case of Pratt and Morgan in 1992, Mr. Smith said the decision did not prevent the Government from carrying out the death penalty.
Mr. Smith said it simply required that it be carried out within five years of the death sentence being delivered. "Five years is more than enough for the Government to complete all the required legal and constitutional procedures so that those who have unlawfully taken other people's lives can be made to hang by the rope until dead," the Opposition spokesman said.
He added that the Government's ability to meet this deadline results from undue delays by the courts to provide written judgements and
transcripts to which an accused person is entitled in order to file an appeal.
Mr. Smith further stated that at the last Vale Royal Summit in March, Mr. Nicholson had undertaken to provide the Opposition with chronological details in respect of each person currently on death row.
According to Mr. Smith, the Opposition is yet to receive this information.
