[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 28




INDIA:

Do Delhi gangrapists deserve the noose? 'Friends of court' say no----The 
offenders in the Delhi gangrape case were sentenced to death a day after their 
conviction, robbing them of a chance to make a fair representation of their 
case.


Should the court award a death penalty to perpetrators merely on the basis of 
the brutality of the rape? And, while awarding the capital punishment, should 
the court rely on evidence which was vitiated by substantial contradictions and 
illegalities?

These questions take centre stage before the Supreme Court because of the 
submissions of 2 amicae curae (friends of the court) in the now-infamous Delhi 
gangrape case. Both the amicae have given detailed explanations to submit that 
the death penalty violated not only settled law but also the convicts' 
fundamental rights to life and equality before the law.

The brutal gangrape of December 16, 2012 that shook New Delhi (and the rest of 
the country) is still fresh in the public's memory. The massive outcry and the 
wide media coverage ensured that the trial was swift, and justice, swifter. All 
the 4 accused (1 of the 6 died in prison, while another one was let off because 
of being a juvenile at the time of committing the offence) were sentenced to 
death on September 10, 2013, a day after being held guilty by the trial court. 
On March 13, 2014, the Delhi High Court upheld the sentences of capital 
punishment. 2 of the 4 appealed to the Supreme Court, and the court appointed 2 
Senior Advocates as amicae curae (friends of the court) to assist it in 
delivering justice.

Raju Ramachandran and Sanjay Hegde, the 2 amicae, have now contended that 
awarding the death penalty is bad in law because it flouted a number of rules 
read into the law by the Supreme Court itself. On January 23, the court took on 
board the submissions of Ramachandran and Hegde, and decided to hear them in 
detail at a later date.

The amicae's submissions can be broadly categorised into 2 parts. Ramachandran 
has contended that the "1-penalty-fits-all" form of sentencing is against the 
law, and that both, the trial court and the high court, gravely erred by not 
following the basic tenets of capital sentencing.

Hedge has submitted that 2 of the 3 dying declarations on which the courts 
relied with regard to the brutalities inflicted on the victim Jyoti Singh 
Pandey do not meet the mandatory stipulations required by law. On that ground 
alone, the death penalty should not have been awarded as there is no concrete 
and reliable evidence regarding the severity of the offence, Hegde contends.

Hasty "Justice"?

Section 235 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure mandates that in cases of 
capital punishment, the convict must be given a fair hearing on the issue of 
the sentence. What form should such a hearing take? Should it be a mere legal 
formality, or should the judge adhere to the law in both letter and spirit?

In such a hearing, the circumstances of the offender must also be taken into 
account while awarding capital punishment, a constitution bench of the Supreme 
Court held in the Bachan Singh case, the seminal ruling on death penalty. And, 
as the apex court later explained in the Allauddin Mian case, the "judge must 
make a genuine effort to elicit from the convicts all the information that 
would have a bearing on the sentence." Such a "genuine effort", Ramachandran 
claims, was not given to the convicts.

"The sentencing on the very next day of the conviction deprived the convicts of 
a chance to reflect on the question of sentence and place their cases 
adequately before the judge", he says. Both Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh 
Khanna (who authored the trial court's ruling) and Justices Reva Khetrapal and 
Pratibha Rani ignored this very vital consideration - that the courts should 
"approach the question of sentence not from a strictly legalistic but from a 
broader sociological point of view".

In sum, Ramachandran contends that by acting in haste, and thus depriving the 
convicts of an "individualized" sentencing process, as required by both statute 
and supreme court case law, the courts below have deprived them of the most 
important and elementary of fundamental rights.

Dying Declarations Riddled with Loopholes

As regards the severity of the offence and the identity and roles of the 
culprits, both the trial court and the high court based their decisions 
entirely upon the 3 dying declarations given by Jyoti, the deceased victim. In 
his submissions, Hegde claims that while multiple dying declarations are 
admissible in a court of law, in the present case the declarations are 
"crafted" in a manner which reflects only the prosecution's version of events; 
they substantively contradict each other, and the "consistent improvements" in 
each of them to suit the prosecution story renders them "wholly unreliable".

Here are the major contradictions in the declarations as pointed out by Hegde:

One, the 1st dying declaration, given on December 17, 2012, states Jyoti as 
saying that rape, sodomy and forced fellatio were committed upon her by a 
minimum of 2 men, and because she was rendered unconscious, she couldn't 
recollect the names and identities of those who attacked her, or the number of 
the chartered bus on board of which the incidents took place.

Two, the 2nd dying declaration, given on December 21, brings out the biggest 
lacunae. It was recorded at a time which was more than 4 hours after Dr. P.K. 
Verma, head of the ICU, had declared Jyoti fit enough to give a statement since 
she was on ventilator support. The fact that the magistrate recording the 
statement relied only on a medical certificate from Verma without independently 
verifying his assessment raises suspicion, because a dying declaration can be 
admissible only when it is conclusively proved that the declarant was fully 
mentally fit and coherent.

Moreover, in the said declaration, Jyoti mentions specific details, the names 
of the men, and the bus number, and also claims that she was confident of 
identifying the offenders if shown their photographs. Even though, as she 
herself stated, and as was the proecution's case, that all the lights in the 
bus had been switched off and it was too dark to see and recognize the 
cuplrits' faces.

It is worthwhile to note that by the time the 2nd declaration was given, all 
the accused had been apprehended by the investigating agencies and had 
confessed to their crimes. The fact that the magistrate relied only upon the 
statements of the police and Jyoti's parents (she could not recall if Jyoti was 
present while recording of the declaration) only makes it more plausible that 
the declaration was in fact a "tutored" statement, suited to what the 
prosecution needed.

Three, the 3rd declaration, recorded on December 24, "sought to compensate for 
the lacunae" in the previous 2, Hegde states. This declaration was given 
through words and gestures for Jyoti was in no condition to speak. It 
completely glossed over the evident contradictions in the 1st 2 statements, 
especially because leading questions were asked, and no questions regarding the 
differing versions were put forth.

The death penalty, if executed, is an irreversible process, and hence it is 
incumbent upon the court to ensure that "procedure established by law", as 
required by the constitution, is strictly followed in both letter and spirit. 
By raising pertinent and disturbing questions regarding both the conviction and 
the sentencing, the amicae's submissions are testing whether the Supreme Court 
goes by the rule of law or succumbs to the whiplash of mass hysteria and the 
public's desire for vengeance.

(source: dnaindia.com)

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

Gurgaon: 10-year-old girl's kin demands death penalty for rapist


The family of the 10-year old girl, whose body was found 3 days ago in a room 
built on a vacant plot in Sector 53 7 days after she went missing, want nothing 
but death penalty for the perpetrator(s) of the crime. The bereaved parents 
were shocked by the torture meted out to their daughter and said they could not 
believe that their girl was no more.

The family is from West Bengal and they have a 14-year old son who lives in 
their village in Murshidabad. They have not told him what has happened to his 
sister. Neither parents can speak Hindi and only converse in Bangla despite 
having stayed in Gurgaon for 6 years.

"I want nothing but see the criminals hanged for committing such a heinous 
crime," the inconsolable mother, who wants police to be more proactive in 
solving the case, said.

However, the parents and the neighbours do not suspected anyone. Majority of 
people in the neighbourhood said none of their own could commit such a crime.

Her mother broke down recalling what the family went through since January 15 
when their daughter went missing from outskirts of Wazirabad.

Neighbours, who saw her body, shared the angst of the family and demanded 
maximum punishment to the culprit(s). "The body of the girl had severe torture 
marks, her ear was cut and the neck bore marks of strangulation. Half the body 
was burnt and it shows the amount of pain she must have gone through," a 
neighbour said.

Her father, who is unemployed as his hand is polio-stricken, said he rues the 
fact that his wife started working as a help in Ardee City from January 1. "My 
wife has always stayed at home and looked after the children but our neighbours 
persuaded her to work as we wanted to collect money for our daughter's 
marriage," he said.

Her aunt, who came from West Bengal 2 days after the abduction recalled that 
her niece was very a simple, innocent girl. "It was easy to lure her as anyone 
could have taken her into confidence by giving her toffees or a few rupees. She 
was not going to school and played around the house, and everyone was uncle to 
her," she said.

(source: Hindustan Times)






PAKISTAN:

Pakistan top court approves execution of man with schizophrenia


A Pakistani man who was convicted of killing a cleric in 2002 can be executed, 
according to the Supreme Court of Pakistan Friday, despite having been 
diagnosed with schizophrenia. The court stayed the execution of Imdad Ali last 
October as his wife, Safia Bano, appealed the conviction on the grounds that he 
was insane at the time of the killing. Relying on precedent from a 1988 ruling 
of the Supreme Court in neighboring India, the Pakistani court determined that 
schizophrenia "was not a permanent mental disorder." 4 experts from the UN 
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Pakistani authorities 
not to execute Ali, and to retry him "in compliance with international 
standards" regarding mental illness.

Human rights and mental health activists have followed this case closely, 
noting that Ali could be executed by hanging at anytime unless his case is 
retried. Capital punishment remains a controversial issue in Pakistan as well 
as worldwide. In October the US Supreme Court vacated the death sentence of an 
Oklahoma man convicted of killing his girlfriend and her 2 children in a case 
where the trial judge permitted family members to recommend the sentence to the 
jury. Earlier that month, a group of UN human rights experts spoke on the 
subject of the death penalty and terrorism, calling the death penalty 
ineffective, and often times illegal, in deterring to terrorism.

(source: jurist.org)

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

Doctors Warn Pakistan's Supreme Court Over Executing Mentally Ill


The World Psychiatric Association has warned Pakistan not to execute a severely 
mentally ill man.

Khizar Hayat, a former policeman, could be hanged as early as next week. A stay 
preventing his execution expires on Monday (30th) unless judges agree to 
lengthen it.

In a statement issued today, the Association of over 200,000 psychiatrists 
worldwide said it was "extremely concerned" by plans to execute Hayat. It added 
that his "execution would be an irreversible miscarriage of justice."

Hayat was diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia in 2008. After 8 
years of treatment with powerful anti-psychotic medications, his symptoms 
remain as serious as ever, leading to a diagnosis that his schizophrenia is 
treatment resistant.

His case has close parallels with Imdad Ali, another mentally ill prisoner who 
was set to be executed at the end of last year.

In Ali's case, Pakistan's Supreme Court commented that schizophrenia is a 
"recoverable disease" and it does not fall within the meaning of "mental 
disorder".

However, the World Psychiatric Association reiterated today "the validity of 
schizophrenia as a diagnosis", saying that it is accepted by "mental health 
professionals the world over".

Ali's case is still before the Supreme Court. On Monday (30th), high court 
judges in Lahore will decide if Hayat's stay of execution should be extended 
until the Supreme Court has decided Ali's case.

Maya Foa, a director of Reprieve, said: "Pakistan's authorities must listen to 
this warning from psychiatrists around the world and confirm once and for all 
that it is wrong to execute mentally ill prisoners such as Khizar Hayat and 
Imdad Ali. It would be outrageous for judges not to extend Khizar's stay of 
execution on Monday while the Supreme Court is still deciding how to deal with 
mentally ill death row inmates."

Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce 
the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.

(source: commondreams.org)






PHILIPPINES:

'Capital punishment in PH won't blunt bid to save death row Pinoys'


Malacanang yesterday said it will continue working to save the life for the 
overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in death row even if the death penalty in the 
country is restored.

This came after the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) 
issued a statement asking the government to not push for the restoration of 
capital punishment because the country will not have the moral ascendancy to 
fight for Filipinos in death row overseas.

Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said the Palace understands the 
concerns of the CBCP but there are countries which operate from a different set 
of rules.

"We understand where the CBCP is coming from. However, we also have to 
understand there are crimes which are really being condemned in certain 
countries particularly in the Middle East," he said over Radyo ng Bayan.

According to Abella, some countries go by the Sharia Law and not the western 
civil law.

"We cannot claim ascendancy but we can claim perhaps clemency and mercy 
depending on the merit of each case, not because we do not have yet the death 
penalty but we have to discuss each one of the merit of each case," he added.

Duterte has been asking for the restoration of the capital punishment since he 
took office. Death penalty in the Philippines was abolished in 2006 by then 
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Earlier this week, Duterte said a maximum of 20 people would be executed 
everyday if the Congress will approve the restoration of the capital 
punishment.

Meanwhile, Abella said the government, particularly the Department of Foreign 
Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is doing its 
best to help the other 88 OFWs who are in death row.

(source: Manila Bulletin)

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

Pinoys in peril abroad if death penalty is OKd


More Filipinos on death row abroad face a greater threat of being executed if 
the Philippines restores capital punishment, minority lawmakers and Catholic 
bishops said on Thursday after a Filipino maid was hanged in Kuwait.

"It saddens us to say that once Congress reinstates death sentences here, and 
once President Rodrigo Duterte makes good his threat to execute 5 to 6 
malefactors every day, there's a high likelihood we would have more Jakatia 
Pawas," Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza said.

Jakatia Pawa, a mother of 2, was executed on Wednesday for the murder of her 
Kuwaiti employer's 22-year-old daughter 10 years ago. She maintained her 
innocence to the end.

Atienza said the President's plan to reimpose the death penalty would 
"emasculate" the government's efforts to save the lives of overseas Filipino 
workers sentenced to death in other countries.

"Once Congress reinstates the cruel and inhuman punishment, it would be highly 
problematic for us to plead with other governments for compassion, if we 
ourselves are killing our own citizens here," Atienza said in a statement.

Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president and 
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas expressed sadness over Pawa's 
fate and "abhorrence at the death penalty."

"The sadness that we feel at Jakatia's death should make us all advocates 
against the death penalty," Villegas said.

Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga, Bataan, said the death of Pawa, a Muslim, 
affected all Filipinos.

"Whatever region or religion, she is a Filipina. She is one of us," said 
Santos, chair of the CBCP's Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of 
Migrants and Itinerant People.

(source: inquirer.net)