[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----INDIA, THE NETH., S. ARAB.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 29



INDIA:

What Judicial Responsibility Must Mean in the Age of the Death 
Penalty----Courts should realise that as long as there is life, there is room 
for reform, and that justice without delay provides better closure to victims 
than execution after decades


The phrase "judicial responsibility" means not just the responsibility to 
uphold the law; it means the overarching responsibility to do justice. In 
Glossip v. Gross - which came up before the United States Supreme Court 
recently - a group of prisoners on death row in Oklahoma contended that the 
method of execution now used by the state violated the Eighth Amendment (which 
bars 'cruel and unusual punishment') because it creates an unacceptable risk of 
severe pain. They lost. 5 judges did not agree with them. Speaking for the 
minority of 4, Justices Sotomayor and Breyer wrote dissenting opinions. Breyer 
spoke of judicial responsibility after listing out the factors which argue 
against death penalty. They are the lack of reliability, arbitrary application 
of the sentence, delay, lack of penological purpose. You can find these in any 
country where the law provides for death penalty, not least in India.

Rather than trying to "patch up the death penalty's legal wounds 1 at a time," 
said Breyer, "I would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether 
the death penalty violates the Constitution."

We in India need to ask the same question.

Not by death alone

Which is the right time to speak about the morality and correctness of death 
penalty? When a convict is facing the gallows and there are last minute reviews 
or pleas for pardon with the media going full blast about the bestiality of the 
crime and the victims praying for justice, the climate is surcharged. Not the 
right time. Once the convict is executed, there are human rights activists 
shouting that India has a black mark and others asking then what about the 
human rights of the deceased/s; the media is milking the moment to the last 
drop. Not the right time. When nothing is happening, no death row prisoner is 
waiting for the noose, the climate is calm, and no one is interested. Not the 
right time. So when do we engage the public with the question of whether a 
civilised society should take lives in the name of the people? That is what the 
state does, when it executes the death sentence.

"Choose life and then you and your descendants shall live" (Deuteronomy 30:19). 
Choose Life. This is the title of a book which records the dialogue between 
Daisaku Ikeda and Arnold Toynbee during the years 1972-1974 covering a wide 
range of issues including the death penalty. Ikeda says, "I feel that life, as 
an absolute entity worthy of the profoundest respect, must never be treated as 
a means of achieving anything other than life itself. The dignity of life is an 
end in itself." Toynbee responds "No human being has a moral right to deprive 
another human being of his life." Someone may ask what if that human being 
deprived other human beings of their lives, then what? Surely we are not in 
junior class shouting, "But he beat me first, Miss!" Yes, the convict took away 
lives and is guilty of murder. That is precisely why we are discussing the 
death penalty in the first place.

The death penalty is irreversible. The Innocence Project is a non-profit 
organization which demonstrates by DNA testing the "judicial errors" in death 
row cases. If an error is proved beyond doubt but the execution has been 
carried out, how does one compensate the 'victims' of judicial process? The 
executed cannot be resurrected. The executed cannot be reformed.

In 2000, the Madras High Court (Justice Sirpurkar and I) heard an appeal 
against the death penalty. A school-girl was raped and murdered by 3 persons. 
It was a sensational case. The trial court found it to be a case of the 'rarest 
of rare' and sentenced them to death. We commuted the sentence to life. I 
received several letters asking me if I was a woman, since the deceased was a 
victim of sexual violence. There was no platform from where I could say that we 
had not acquitted the accused, but we had commuted the sentence, for valid 
reasons regarding the circumstances of the accused. Sometime in 2014, I read a 
news item about a project in Tamil Nadu conducting courses for prisoners to 
rehabilitate and equip them with life skills. Among the life-term prisoners who 
had secured gold medals and state ranks was the first accused in the above 
case. This is not submitted as an argument against the death penalty, but as an 
argument for upholding the right to life. The state punishes not only as a 
deterrent, but to reform too.

Random justice

There are many reports of studies in the US which indicate that the factors 
that circumstances that ought not to affect the imposition of the death penalty 
- such as race, gender or geography - often do. In India too, such extraneous 
factors affect the application of the death penalty. Count the number of 
persons who can afford the best legal counsel and have gone to the gallows and 
you will have your answer. Then is it judicially responsible to apply such a 
random game-changer when it comes to life and death?

The Coimbatore bomb blast is a classic case in which death penalty could have 
been awarded. Nineteen bombs exploded in the city on February 14, 1998, 
resulting in the deaths of 58 persons and injuries to 250 persons and huge loss 
to private and public properties. In all, 166 persons faced trial but the court 
did not sentence even 1 to death. Revisions were filed seeking enhancement of 
sentence. They were dismissed. The trial court had given very responsible 
reasons for not giving the death penalty though the public prosecutor had 
pleaded that this was a most fitting case for capital punishment. The court 
said that none of the accused was granted bail during the trial and this 
deprived them of securing the best legal counsel and collecting all the 
relevant materials to support their case. The long period in jail resulted in 
internal friction amongst the accused themselves which again was 
counter-productive to their conducting the case. The manner in which witnesses 
were examined and the cross-examination conducted had also caused prejudice. 
Only a few of the advocates who appeared for the accused had given their best 
to defend them. The accused had pleaded that the offence was a result of the 
sense of isolation they felt and the consequent loss of faith in the system. 
These circumstances weighed with the trial court. Each one of the reasons is an 
aspect of fair and equal access to justice - ensuring which is undeniably the 
responsibility of every judge. I was one of the judges who heard the appeals 
before the Madras High Court and hence my familiarity with the facts.

In the Naroda Patiya judgment, the trial court explained why the death penalty 
was not given. If there was a case which the court could have easily called the 
rarest of rare it was this. Yet the judge cited the rights of those on death 
row, the restricted use of the death penalty in a progressive society, and the 
fact that use of the death penalty undermines human dignity, to support her 
decision not to grant capital punishment.

Choosing life

Both cases - Coimbatore and Naroda Patiya - are scarred by the death of 
innocent victims. No one was awarded the death penalty and both the trial 
judges gave reasons for their decisions. But in similar cases, the death 
penalty has been awarded. This means there is an inconsistency in sentencing 
even in cases where numerous persons have been killed.

There are the victims who demand justice. It is allegedly to assuage their 
feelings that society insists on the death penalty. In a 1985 Stanford Law 
Review article, Lynne Henderson has written [PDF], "Common assumptions about 
crime victims - that they are all "outraged" and want revenge and tougher law 
enforcement - underlie much of the current victim's rights rhetoric. But in 
light of the existing psychological evidence, these assumptions fail to address 
the experience and real needs of past victims."

According to her study, the promise of an execution offered only a seemingly 
appealing mechanism to assign blame and to channel rage. Actually the crime 
victims felt that the endless repetition of their stories, the formal legal 
rules, and the years lost between appeals only served to increase stress and 
delay healing. Then is it only the "Roman crowd" which seeks a vicarious taste 
of blood?

In Justice: What is the Right Thing To Do?, Michael Sandel wonders if morality 
does not mean "something to do with the proper way for human beings to treat 
one another." Toynbee and Ikeda agree that human life as an entity deserves 
absolute respect. Sandel asks "Is morality a matter of counting lives and 
weighing costs and benefits, or are certain moral duties and human rights so 
fundamental that they rise above such calculations?" The Right to Life is not a 
subject-to right. It is fundamental because it is life which is fundamental.

In times of death penalty, I believe courts should close their ears to the 
ambient din. While hearing the case with all the patience at their command, 
courts must remember that the right to life rises above weighing costs and 
benefits, that as long as there is life, there is room for reform, that justice 
without delay provides better closure to victims than execution after decades, 
that every system is fallible and life is too precious to hang on to a fallible 
process. So it is better to be responsible and to Choose Life.

(source: Prabha Sridevan is a former judge of the Madras High 
Court----thewire.in)






THE NETHERLANDS:

Largest Dutch pension fund exits Mylan over death penalty concerns


The Dutch public employees' pension fund, the world's 3rd largest, has sold all 
its shares in pharmaceuticals maker Mylan after it emerged that one of the 
company's products is in stock at a U.S. prison where death sentences are 
carried out.

The move comes amid increasing pressure from European countries over continuing 
use of capital punishment in the United States.

European companies are barred from selling drugs for use in executions, forcing 
states that still impose the death penalty to scrabble for alternative 
substances, some of which have led to widely publicised and gruesome botched 
executions.

The move by ABP, which had $416 billion in assets in 2014 according to 
consultancy Towers Watson, is thought to have been followed by other Dutch 
pension funds. The Netherlands has the world's largest pool of pension assets 
per capita, worth $1.2 trillion in 2012.

Harmen Geers, a spokesman for ABP, said the decision came after a 9-month 
dialogue with the company failed to achieve a satisfactory result.

"As the Dutch government and Dutch society as a whole renounced the death 
penalty a long time ago, we do not want Dutch pension money to be involved in 
that," he said.

The U.S-based but Dutch-registered company has a declaration on its website 
saying its products are not designed or intended for use in executions, but 
Geers said Mylan could do more to police their use.

The U.S. state of Virginia confirmed in response to a freedom of information 
request in July that it held stocks of Rocuronium Bromide, a Mylan-made drug 
that can be used to kill people.

Geers said it was this information that led to the decision to sell its Mylan 
holdings in full. "We thought we have only one step left to show our 
disapproval," he said.

ABP, the largest Dutch pension fund, held 9 million euros ($10 million) in the 
company before the divestment, down from 25 million euros last year when it 
first approached Mylan with its concerns.

Calls to Mylan were not immediately returned.

(source: Reuters)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Saudi Arabia Executes 4 As Death Penalty Surges


The Saudi kingdom executed a total of 26 people last August in a sudden rise in 
executions, a trend that Amnesty says is growing.

It added that some have been convicted "solely on the basis of "confessions" 
obtained under duress or involving deception".

AI's report "Death and Executions in 2014" criticized not only Saudi Arabia's 
use of the death penalty but also the country's judicial system.

Saudi Arabia has fiercely rejected criticism of its use of the death penalty 
arguing that death sentences are carried out in line with Islamic sharia law 
and only for the "most serious crimes" and with the strictest fair trial 
standards and safeguards in place.

Almost 1/2 of the 2,208 people executed in the past 30 years have been foreign 
nationals, with many believed to have lacked sufficient Arabic skills to 
understand court proceedings.

Amnesty said it reached out to the Saudi Interior and Justice ministries, but 
received no reply.

According to the 43-page report, the Saudi regime executed 102 people between 
January and June 2015.

An Associated Press tally based on official announcements shows that Saudi 
Arabia executed 109 people since January, compared to 83 in all of 2014.

In some cases bodies and severed heads have been put on public display, Amnesty 
said.

Often relatives are only informed of the executions after-the-fact, sometimes 
learning about the deaths through media reports.

Beheadings are the most common execution method in Saudi Arabia, but some 
executions also carried out by firing squad.

According to Amnesty, nearly half of those executed in recent years were 
convicted of non-lethal crimes such as drug trafficking. Those killed included 
children under the age of 18 at the time of the offence, and disabled people.

The kingdom is in the top 5 countries in the world for putting people to death.

Executions for drug related offences rose from just 4% in 2010 and 2011 to 28% 
in 2012 and 32% in 2013.

The "fast pace" of executions in Saudi Arabia was deemed "very disturbing" by a 
UN special rapporteur.

The Guardian reported that Indonesia decided in May that it will not send any 
more domestic workers to 21 countries in the Middle East. The decision was made 
after 2 Indonesian women, Karni binti Medi Tarsim and Siti Zainab, had been 
executed by Saudi authorities in April.

(source: pppfocus.com)