Two Today, Monday, from Rick's DP News & Updates (see his and many other links on lower right side of this front page)
JANUARY 26, 2009: UGANDA:
'MPs should revise death penalty'
The Supreme Court that last week upheld the death penalty is asking Parliament to review the capital punishment since no condemned prisoner has been executed in a decade.
Led by Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki, the seven judges ruled last Tuesday that courts cannot hijack the role of the legislature to "abrogate a substantive provision of the Constitution by a process of interpreting oneprovision against another." "This is the work of the legislature. We wish to urge that the Legislature should re-open debate on the desirability of the death penalty in our Constitution…"
This advice, which is non-binding, means the fate of the 418 death row inmates, who unsuccessfully petitioned court to expunge the punishment of death sentence, could now be decided by the vote of MPs. The judges said, "there is nothing to stop Uganda from introducing legislation to amend the Constitution and abolish the death sentence."
The justices also said an infinite delay by the President to pardon or vary sentences for condemned prisoners is “unreasonable.” But Mr Peter Walubiri, a constitutional lawyer, said it was odd that the judges, who pointed out the conflict between Articles 21 and 44 of the Constitution in regard to the sanctity of life, could not quash the death penalty, which is "cruel, inhuman and degrading." "The Supreme Court judges are not 'activist' enough; they were shy to interprete one constitutional provision against another and yet it is their role – as the highest court in the land - to harmonise the Constitution," Mr Walubiri said yesterday. "If you cannot harmonise conflicting provisions, you strike out one and the principle is that you uphold fundamental human rights in the Constitution," he said.
Mr Walubiri said it is surprising that the justices, who ruled against the mandatory death sentence, and decided that convicts who stay 3 or more years on death row after the Supreme Court confirms their sentences, should automatically have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment, could say it is only Parliament's duty to make laws.
During the formulation of the Constitution, majority Ugandans said the capital penalty be retained for the worst crimes. Subsequently, the Constituent Assembly sanctioned the capital punishment, which is an automatic sentence for persons convicted of crimes such as murder, kidnap with intent to murder, aggravated robbery and treason.
(source: Opinion, Tabu Butagira, Daily Monitor)
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Death penalty has no place in a democracy
If you think that the recent re-affirmation of the death penalty will be good for democracy, think again. Although scrutiny of laws and judicial processes is a healthy exercise, giving the state a licence to kill binds society in fear and makes self-determination less likely, not more so.
Why do we rage at people murdering children in ritual sacrifice, gunning down pedestrians in a bank robbery, or hacking neighbours to death with pangas but cheer as the killers mount the scaffold? Perhaps we think ourselves safe from such a fate, but most criminals carry out their acts not believing or not caring that they will be caught. In this regard, little separates them from you except their willingness to kill. But we are prepared to do it too, though not with our own hands. We delegate the power of life and death to the government.
If the state, sanctioned by the people, is capable of murdering undesirables then it is capable of other forms of violence against other subjects. The people, inured to this official violence, come to believe they are exempt from it or powerless to stop it and thus accept it. The government thereby acquires freedom of manoeuvre within these limits of tolerance, to ignore laws or spend resources without accountability. When this happens we say the government is corrupt or remote from the people. Even where the government punishes its own it is merely reacting to a crime, and it is always ready to punish those outside the government in the name of law and order.
Consider that punishment is really a form of self-deception. When we punish someone we believe it a fair return for an affront to some set of rules, and it often affords us a sense of security if not satisfaction. But done regularly, punishment stops us from seeing and then taking steps which could prevent social or behavioral problems which we think merited punishment in the first place. We fool ourselves into thinking that the crime or the corruption ends with the execution of the murderer or the dismissal of the minister.
Any society obsessed with punishment cannot fully contemplate reform because the basis of reform is the recognition and forgiveness of mistakes. If we are too busy hanging people then we won’t look closely at the social origins of the crimes which lead to executions. Poverty, ethnic and religious discrimination, and the dwindling of hope do not themselves kill people, but they shape the people who do. Unless we address those problems we will watch a growing stream of offenders die for a growing list of crimes in which we ourselves are complicit when we give the hangman a free hand.
When we sponsor state violence through the death penalty, and when we ensure a ready supply of candidates for death row with our obsession with punishment over reform, we abdicate our responsibility to govern ourselves. Since self-determination is the beginning and end of democracy, we are giving it up even as we congratulate ourselves on our commitment to public safety. And the government will take all you care to give it and join in the celebration of the rule of law.
The trouble with the rule of law and democracy is that laws are made by people and serve the interests of their creators. You and I did not create the law governing capital punishment. You may say that your elected representatives created it, but how much do they really have in common with you? If you are facing execution will you go quietly? If you believe in the justice of the death penalty then you should answer Yes. But if you doubt the certainty with which the judiciary pronounces guilt and the fairness of its punishment then you cannot be an advocate of the state killing its own people.
There are more effective ways to ensure the safety of citizens and property than the ritual murdering of rule breakers dressed up as justice. To endorse the death penalty is to advertise a commitment to the oppression of one part of society by another. A genuine democracy has no place for capital punishment.
(source: Opinion, Machael Madill, Daily Monitor)
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