[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 21




JAMAICA:

Privy Council shocker!----UK Court made offer to sit in Jamaica


The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had, 5 years ago, signalled its 
willingness to travel to Jamaica to hear cases, the Jamaica Observer has 
learnt.

The London-based court made the offer to then Attorney General and Justice 
Minister Senator Dorothy Lightbourne in an April 16, 2010 letter, a copy of 
which was obtained by the Observer.

"Late last year, John Almeida of Messrs Charles Russell indicated that the 
Government of Jamaica wished to explore the idea of a visit by the Judicial 
Committee to conduct hearings in Jamaica on a future date," the court's Acting 
Registrar Louis di Mambro told Lightbourne in the letter.

"I am writing to let you know that Lord Phillips and Lord Hope would be 
delighted if a formal invitation were to be extended, say, for 2011," di Mambro 
said.

He raised the issue of the cost of the court travelling to the island, saying 
that he had delayed writing to Lightbourne until they had an idea of the cost 
involved in the board's first sitting overseas that year.

That sitting was apparently in Mauritius as di Mambro pointed out that the 
board, which comprised 5 judges, would have been accompanied by 3 members of 
staff.

The Observer was yesterday unable to determine how the then Government 
responded to the offer. However, the itinerant nature of the court runs counter 
to arguments put forward by Justice Minister Senator Mark Golding in the Upper 
House last Friday as he opened the debate on 3 Bills related to the 
Government's determination to make the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) 
Jamaica's final appellate court.

The Bills are the Caribbean Court of Justice Act 2012; the Judicature 
(Appellate Jurisdiction) (Amendment) Act, 2012; and the Constitution 
(Amendment) (Caribbean Court of Justice) Act 2012, which would make the 
constitutional change to replace the over 180-year-old Privy Council with the 
10-year-old CCJ headquartered in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Golding had argued that for centuries the vast majority of Jamaicans have been 
denied the right to appeal their cases to the Privy Council because it sits in 
London.

He said that the Privy Council, for the most part, only hears appeals from two 
categories of Jamaicans -- convicted murderers who are facing the death 
penalty, and "the wealthy individual or corporation in Jamaica that can afford 
the enormous costs, amounting to many tens of millions of dollars, that are 
required to take an appeal to the Privy Council".

He said that for the vast majority of Jamaicans, if they lose their appeal in 
the Jamaican Court of Appeal, "that is the end of their recourse to the law for 
protection of their rights, even though there may be a right to a further 
appeal to the final court in London".

Added Golding: "The Privy Council is fundamentally inaccessible to most 
Jamaicans. Litigants and their counsel need visas to travel there, which are 
not available as of right."

However, in his letter to Lightbourne, the Privy Council's acting registrar 
said the board was "very conscious of the cost involved when it sits overseas 
and has sought to reduce the numbers of staff who accompany the board".

Debate on Jamaica joining the CCJ in its appellate jurisdiction has been 
controversial, with the Government insisting that the country shed the Privy 
Council, which it has described as one of the last vestiges of colonialism.

However, the Opposition has argued that any such decision should be made by the 
Jamaican electorate in a referendum.

Last Friday, Golding said that the Privy Council has no security of tenure 
under Jamaican law, as it is not protected by entrenchment in the Constitution. 
As such, he said, it could be abolished by a Bill supported by a simple 
majority in both Houses of Parliament.

"We believe a referendum would be a huge mistake," the justice minister said.

However, Opposition Senator Alexander Williams disagreed with Golding, stating 
that the country's final appellate court would require the greatest level of 
protection if it were to succeed, adding that a two-thirds vote "may not 
necessarily represent the will of the Jamaican electorate".

"We need to be very careful about what we are doing. It is my view that our 
final court should be deeply entrenched to protect it from any possible 
interference by our political parties, who might jointly dislike its decisions 
and seek to remove it by a 2/3 majority vote in Parliament," Senator Williams 
insisted.

The CCJ has said that in order to pre-empt that eventuality and fund the court 
in perpetuity, a trust fund of US$100 million has been established, "so as to 
enable the expenditures of the court to be financed by income from the fund. In 
this way, the expenditures of the court, including the remuneration of the 
judges, is not dependent on the disposition of governments".

Jamaica's contribution to that fund is US$27 million.

The CCJ was inaugurated in April 2005 to replace the Privy Council. In addition 
to acting as an international tribunal interpreting the Revised Treaty of 
Chaguaramas that governs the regional integration movement, the court has 
original and appellate jurisdictions.

Up to March this year, only 4 of Caricom's 15 member states -- Barbados, 
Belize, Guyana, and Dominica -- had replaced the Privy Council's appellate 
jurisdiction with the CCJ.

Trinidad and Tobago, which hosts the court, has not done so.

(source: Jamaica Gleaner)






PAKISTAN:

131 cases of terrosim sent to military courts


131 cases of terrorists have been referred to military courts. Number of 
hangings has reached 246 after the death penalty was restored. President 
Mamnoon Hussain has rejected appeals of 54 persons, reported Dunya News.

According to latest statistics of National Action Plan (NAP), up to 131 cases 
of terrorism have been referred to military courts in the aftermath of 
restoration of death penalty. 246 persons have been hanged out which 62 were 
tried under Anti-Terrorism Act while 184 persons have been tried under Penal 
Code. The concerned persons were handed death penalties as they were involved 
in heinous crimes such as killing, kidnapping for ransom among others.

Nearly 6000 applications have been filed to stop the implementation of the 
death penalties. As per sources, after 21st amendment, 131 cases have been sent 
to military courts for which courts are working on a daily basis. More than 20 
terrorists involved in various incidents of terrorism have been convicted and 
hanged while some of them have been given life sentences. Army Chief has 
ratified the sentences passed on by the military courts.

(source: Dunya News)

*************

Pakistan executes 14 prisoners in 24 hours


Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but 
in March they were extended to all capital offences.

Pakistan on Wednesday hanged at least 5 more men for murder, an official said, 
bringing the total number of people executed in just 24 hours to 14.

The latest executions took place in cities of Lahore, Bahawalpur, Toba Tek 
Singh, Mianwali, Dera Ghazi Khan in central Punjab province.

"1 convict was hanged in each jail in the 5 cities," a senior prisons official, 
who did not want to be named, told AFP.

On Tuesday, Pakistan executed nine convicts, also in prisons in Punjab.

The hangings brought the tally of executions to more than 250 since the 
Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty in December, after 
Taleban militants gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at a 
school in the restive northwest.

Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but 
in March they were extended to all capital offences.

The European Union, the United Nations and human rights campaigners have all 
urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium.

Amnesty International estimated in December that Pakistan has more than 8,000 
prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted their appeals.

(source: Khaleej Times)






SAUDI ARABIA:

Father of Saudi Teenager on Death Row Suprised By British Foreign Secretary's 
Comments


Supporters and family of the Saudi man sentenced to death by beheading and 
crucifixion have reacted with confusion to claims made by the British Foreign 
Secretary Philip Hammond that he does "not expect" the execution to take place.

Hammond said in the House of Commons on Tuesday that he believed Ali Mohammed 
Al-Nimr, the Saudi man jailed and condemned to death for attending an 
anti-government protest as a teenager, would not be executed, prompting some 
groups to celebrate victory in their battle to have his sentence overturned.

However, rights group Amnesty International has cast doubt on Hammond's 
comments, saying that there is no basis for him to believe that Al-Nimr would 
be spared by the Saudi regime.

"As far as we know, Ali Al-Nimr's sentence has been upheld by the Supreme 
Court," says Amnesty's Saudi Arabia researcher Sevag Kechichian in an email to 
Newsweek. "The only thing that prevents him from being executed is the King 
declaring that he won't ratify his death sentence or that he pardons him. 
Unless either of those happens, Ali remains at risk of imminent execution."

Kechichian adds: "We presume that the U.K. government may have had some kind of 
vague assurance from their Saudi Arabian counterparts, but we can't really 
speculate on that. Meanwhile, Ali Al-Nimr's family are not going to get any 
reassurance from Philip Hammond's vague statement."

The e-mail continues: "In fact, on the same day that Hammond was declaring that 
he does 'not expect that Mr al-Nimr will be executed,' his family had just 
tweeted that they went to prison to see Ali but were denied access."

Ali's father, Mohammed Al-Nimr, who has previously described the family's 
torment with their son on death row, is yet to comment directly on Hammond's 
statement. However in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Mohammed said that 
his son could be executed "at any moment."

"Usually the Interior Ministry does not notify anyone that they will kill their 
child ... at a specific time," he said in the interview. "We could at any time 
turn on the TV or the radio and hear the decision announced there."

The confusion has arisen after Hammond responded to a question from opposition 
Labour shadow Minister for Human Rights, Andy Slaughter, on the case of Al-Nimr 
and that of a British man, Karl Andree, who has been sentenced to 360 lashings 
in Saudi Arabia for being in possession of bottles of homemade wine.

Hammond said: "I do not expect Mr Andree to receive the lashings that he has 
been sentenced to and I do not expect Mr Al-Nimr to be executed."

Britain's top diplomat added: "As I've said on many occasions previously when 
I've been asked to comment on these judicial matters in Saudi Arabia in the 
House, our judgment is that we achieve most by speaking privately and regularly 
to our Saudi interlocutors."

His confidence that Al-Nimr would not be killed by Saudi authorities was met by 
jubilation by some supporters, including hacktivist group Anonymous, which has 
targeted Saudi websites over Nimr's planned execution.

"Ali Mohammed al-Nimr will not be executed. Huge win for. . .the Anons/supports 
of the operation," wrote a prominent Anonymous account on Twitter.

Al-Nimr's case has been the subject of a campaign by NGOs Amnesty International 
and Reprieve, as well as British opposition politicians such as Labour leader 
Jeremy Corbyn. The case has also caused divisions within the ruling 
Conservative government, with Justice Minister Michael Gove successfully 
pushing for the cancellation of a $9 million deal to train the Saudi regime how 
to run its prisons last week.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office declined to comment.

(source: Newsweek)