Impose immediate moratorium on all executions
FMT LETTER: From Charles Hector, via e-mail
Malaysia’s move towards the abolition of the mandatory death penalty
for drug offences, and replacing it with jail terms, is most welcome.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nazri Aziz, recently said
he will be moving the Malaysian Cabinet to defer the death sentences
passed on 675 convicted drug traffickers in the country, while the
government reviews the death penalty for drug offences.
This follows the statement in July 2012, when Attorney-General Abdul
Gani Patail said that his Chambers was working towards proposing an
amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 to give judges the discretion
of not imposing death sentences on couriers
In its 2009 Universal Periodic Review report to the United Nations
Human Rights Council, Malaysia also did declare that it was proposing
to amend “existing anti-drug trafficking legislation to reduce the
maximum sentence to life imprisonment” from the currently practised
mandatory death.
Most of the 675 persons on death row for drug trafficking today are
“drug mules”, some of whom may have even been conned. Drug kingpins are
rarely caught. In Malaysia, persons caught with a certain weight of
drugs are presumed to be drug traffickers, and the onerous burden of
rebutting this presumption shifts to the accused person.
This goes against the norm in the criminal justice system, where the
burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a person is guilty is
on the prosecution. There are also close to 250 Malaysians arrested as
drug mules and sentenced to death abroad, including in China and
Singapore, and Malaysia’s plea for clemency is inconsistent if it
retains the death penalty.
In March 2012, it was also revealed in Parliament by Home Minister
Hishammuddin Hussein that the mandatory death penalty has been shown to
have failed to act as a deterrent. Police statistics for the arrests of
drug dealers under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, which
carries the mandatory death penalty, for the past three years (2009 to
2011) have shown an increase.
In 2009, there were 2,955 arrested under this section. In 2010, 3,700
people were arrested, whilst in 2011, there were 3,845 arrested.
Sixty-nine % (or 479) of the 696 waiting for execution of their death
sentences in Malaysian prisons as on Feb 22, 2011, were for drug
offences. Today, there are about 900 on death row.
No legal system in the world is foolproof or error-free. There have
been many examples of cases of miscarriage of justice, where innocent
persons have been incarcerated for many years, or even sentenced to
death. The opportunity to right a wrong is, however, not available since
death is irreversible.
Suhakam has also called on Malaysia to join the other 140 UN
member states to completely abolish the death penalty. The
United Nations General Assembly have also adopted Resolutions in
2007, 2008 and 2010 calling for a moratorium on executions, with a
view to eventually abolishing the death penalty.
Malaysia has begun commuting death sentence, whereby five Filipinos
on death row had their sentenced commuted to prison terms earlier this
year.
We call for the abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia, for an
immediate moratorium on all executions pending abolition and for the
commutation of the sentences of all persons currently on death row;
We also call on Malaysia to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
This letter is written for and on behalf of 73 international trade unions and organisations
This letter is written for and on behalf of 73 international trade unions and organisations
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