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Time to end the burden of waiting to execute death penalty
2005-07-18 08:17:34
By Philip H. Filikunjombe
A recent request by the MPs to the President to endorse the death penalty for more than 500 inmates or commute the sentence to life imprisonment and outlaw the death sentence sparked off yet again the old debate, revealing even stronger public interest in the matter.
We need to review the whole purpose of the death penalty, and ask ourselves, if we can stop murders or, so to speak, prevent other forms of homicide in the society by using death penalty.
As for commuting the death penalty it is with these grounds that our presidents have shown considerable hesitation to assent to the implementation of death penalties on hundreds of inmates.
Tanzanian presidents are too merciful to execute the death penalty. Such decisions are hard to take as our presidents are human beings, living in a peaceful and relatively non-violent society, cherishing human life where it can save it.
In the 1994 Mnyaroge case the court ruled that the death penalty was an unconstitutional, inhuman and degrading punishment. Again some issues are worth considering.
Was the unconstitutionality of the death penalty exceptional to that case, and if not, what next? Doesn’t Article 13 of the Constitution apply to bar the penalty to other cases as it was unconstitutional in that particular case? Did any review of this verdict come in, or it remains lettre morte, a dead letter?
There are concerns that in operating the death penalty it is possible that some innocent citizens, be made victims of the punishment, especially when there are malfunctions in the judicial system.
An innocent person, under the present legal system, may be convicted and subjected to the death penalty due to inadequate legal aid, failure to hire a competitive lawyer in town, etc.
May be it is worthy subscribing to the idea that murderers are to be swept out of the society by hanging in order to create a peaceful state. But sincerely we can’t achieve a peaceful state by killing.
Does that imply that families and relatives of the murderer will be at peace anyhow after beloved ones are executed as a result of the death penalty?
No relatives will be happy when their beloved ones are permanently silenced, no matter what crimes they committed to deserve such punishment.
In Mnyaroge’s case it was argued that if one who kills must also be killed to deter him from committing the same in the near future, what about the rapists? Should they also be raped under such jino kwa jino modus operandi? Aren’t we taking matters too far?
Just consider how it feels to the 500 people on the death row, with only the president’s sign to go, before the hangman terminates their lives.
An inmate on the death row was quoted as saying, ’’Don’t just look at us, go and call the president to come and hang us’’. Does it sound civilized and human?
From independence Tanzania has retained the death penalty, so capital punishment is routinely passed by courts of law on people convicted of murder or treason. It has been a point of debate worldwide, trying to determine the pros and cons of this penalty.
As debates on the death penalty take years, Amnesty International says China leads in executing death sentences.
Death penalty supporters argue that the penalty deters merciless criminals from committing more crimes, and further that killers must themselves be hanged, to effect the principle that he who kills must suffer the same penalty.
On the other hand activists against the death penalty maintain that such a sentence is cruel and inhuman, that it degrades the country which pursues it, and is therefore inconsistent with a contry that has ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or adopted a Bill of Rights into the constitution. In our case it therefore contravenes Article 13 of the Constitution.
In the famous 1994 Mbushuu (Mnyaroge) case in which death sentence was quashed on the ground that it was unconstitutional, much weight was given to Article 13(6)(d) and (e) which provide for the protection of individual person’s dignity. It underlines that no person shall be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading punishment or such treatment.
In the case of Tanzania hundreds of people have been sentenced to death since independence habitually the presidents have been hesitant to consent to the execution of the death penalty on the inmates.
Throughout his 24 years stay in office the late Mwalimu Nyerere is said to have endorsed only two death sentences, while President Benjamin Mkapa is yet to endorse any.
Countries which have abolished the death penalty show patently that it is possible to outlaw the death penalty and find other ways to curb violent crimes in society. It is time that Tanzanians came up and got more concerned about the matter.
And if the constitution as the mother law of the state gives a negative view of the death penalty then it is important that no law in contradiction with fundamental law should be retained.
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