On the recent World Against the Death Penalty Day, international human rights groups, including Amnesty International, vigorously demanded that killing people in the name of punishment or law should not be continued. They have vociferously demanded for the end of death penalty which still exists in today’s democratic and non-democratic countries, unlike in Nepal.
Regarding my own perception I had always been a strong dissident of the capital punishment. It left me with an utter consternation when an Australian drug smuggler was killed by the Singoporean government as a “harsh” punishment. The thing bothered me was whether the death penalty was justifiable regarding the extent of the his crime’s severity.
Smuggling the forbidden drugs could be catastrophic to many who could abuse it and thus destroy their lives. Being an mediator helping to deteriorate the lives of many is a punishable offense. But the death sentence for the crime when the criminal himself doesn’t hold the sole liability, could be too excessive and doesn’t sound that authentic in terms of punishment. A drug smuggler doesn’t kill anyone intentionally, but the offense could a shared by a wide range of people from the suppliers and even including those who consume it.
But what significantly contrasts regarding the nature of the crime is when perpetrators intentionally and consiciously kill other persons to fulfill their interests. Murder could be intentional, defensive, or accidental. In the first kind there should never be any mercy. The person falling under the first category impose evil to the innocent people just to gain benefit, like money, revenge, or conceal one’s own crimes.
Advocacy against the death sentence could sound genuine for the less severe form of crimes other than the intentional murders, and its even more regrettable if any innocent suffers the death sentence. But what about the evil instinct of murderers who, without fearing any punishment that would be equally severe as their crime, messily and carelessly takes the lives of others?
For one instance, the event of a daylight kidnapping and murder of a child named Bibek Luintel could stir anyone’s feeling that it is unfair that our country, Nepal, doesn't have any provision to punish the culprits (who are in the custody right now) with the death penalty. Not only in Nepal, but there are several such instances around the world where children are kidnapped, their vital organs like kidneys are taken to sell in the illegal markets, and they are eventually killed to conceal the faces behind such brutal crimes.
Nepal joins the list of many other countries which has refrained from the capital punishment since a considerable time in history. It was another case during the time of Panchayati autocracy or in the time of despotic Rana oligarchy when innocent people were killed in the name of punishment whenever the autocrats feared any conspiracy or any threat against their rule. Similar was the example in Saddam’s rule in Iraq where his nonconformists were killed in a most ruthless manner, and again in the name of “punishment.”
The question here is whether the capital punishment should be totally abolished, no matter if it’s a despotic ruler’s wicked interests or in a democratic rule (where still there could be the evil doers who kill others for their mere interests)? To a certain extent, the discontinuation of the death sentence could be justifiable. But in the instances when it seems that lack of death sentence has given license to the intentional murderers, who would kill innocents fearing less for their punishment that would never resemble the severity of their crime, is something which deserves an authentic thinking for the law makers around the world.
Intentional murders is something that shouldn’t warrant any clemency, and any punishment less than the death sentence wouldn’t be helpful to deter any such heinous intentions of the criminals in the future.
As a whole, death sentence mustn’t be a pratice that inadvertently give permission to kill the culprits regardless of the sternness of their crimes, or without analyzing that the crime really deserved the death sentence. But pitying the intentional murders with something less than the death penalty, wouldn’t impose any fear inside them that they would also be killed as punishment, eventually paving the way for such crimes to frequently occur in future. Neither it would provide enough justice to the victims and their closed-ones.
Regarding the kidnapping and murder of Bibek Luintel and taking into account that he was not only the victim, as a significant number of criminal gangs may be behind these crimes, imposition of capital punishment in our country could at least restrain the growing cases of abduction and murder of innocent children for the mere monetary purposes.
Other forms of crimes other than murders, despite their severity, could be corrected or amended in some point of life. A culprit could say sorry, compensate the victim, or victim could eventually forgive the culprit. But murder is something that never can be corrected. A person killed can by no means come back to life, nor can any death be compensated by any means or by any amount of weath. Thus, would there be anything that would answer a murderer less than the death penalty itself?
Imposition of capital punishment would not cause the violation of human rights. Instead it would protect the wider range of human-rights violations by protecting the lives of many innocents. Indeed, there should be a deeply-worked-out and a clear line of recognition drawn between the serious crimes like intentional murders and other less severe crimes those however doesn’t falls under the circumstance that deserve the death penalty. But for the former, the death penalty would be justifiable.
Source: www.ezinearticles.com
