AMNESTY International (AI) states that people are convicted and sentenced to death by the state as punishment for a variety of crimes — sometimes for acts that should not (in its opinion) be criminalised.
In some places, capital punishment is meant for drug-related offences. In others, it is reserved for offences related to murder and terrorism.
AI maintains that the death penalty breaches human rights, which are protected under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Several protocols have since been passed to ban the death penalty, including:
SECOND Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
PROTOCOLS No. 6 and No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights; and,
PROTOCOL to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Although international law allows the death penalty for the most serious crimes, it is never the answer.
Excluding China (the world's top executioner), 88 per cent of all reported executions took place in Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
Apart from beheading, the death penalty is carried out by hanging, lethal injection and shooting.
In the United States, six states carry out executions by lethal injection and one state (Tennessee) uses electrocution.
Advocates for the abolition of the death penalty gave the following reasons:
IT is irreversible and mistakes happen. Since 1973, more than 184 prisoners on death row in the US have been exonerated or released from death row on grounds of innocence;
IT does not deter crime. There is no concrete evidence to show that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment;
IT is often used within skewed justice systems. In some countries, the death penalty is the mandatory punishment for certain offences, which means that trial judges are not able to take into account the circumstances of the crime or the defendant before imposing sentence;
IT is discriminatory. The burden of the death penalty is disproportionally carried by those who have limited access to legal representation; and,
IT is used as a political tool. In some countries, the death penalty is used against political opponents.
Defenders of the penalty argue that society has a moral obligation to protect the safety and welfare of citizens.
Since these criminals threaten public safety and welfare, only through the death penalty can society make sure that they do not go against the law again.
They also argue that justice demands that those convicted of heinous crimes like murder be sentenced to death.
Justice requires that sanctions corresponding to the harm they caused to innocent persons be imposed on these criminals.
By inflicting death on those who deliberately inflict death on others, the death penalty ensures justice for all. It is the familiar "an eye for an eye" retribution principle.
In 1976, the US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty. Since then, more than 1,480 people have been executed by lethal injection.
In February this year, AI called on the Malaysian government to seize the opportunity to abolish the death penalty once and for all.
According to official figures, up to November last year 1,359 people were on death row.
In January this year, Malaysia took a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. The eyes of the world are now on us, examining our human rights record.
It is time to take that next step, following an earlier promise by Law Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar to "review the findings" of the Special Committee to Review Alternative Sentences to the Mandatory Death Penalty.
Lest we forget, past experience teaches us that there is a tendency for "committee findings" to gather dust in somebody's shelf and be ultimately forgotten.
So, are we ready to take on the human rights leadership on this issue?
The writer, a former federal counsel at the Attorney-General's Chambers and visiting professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, is now a full-time consultant, trainer and author
