Representatives of civil society from the Caribbean on Monday called on governments in the region to take steps towards ending the death penalty.
The call, which coincided with the observation of Human Rights Day, was made by representatives of non-governmental organisations from the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the Greater Caribbean For Life network and Amnesty International.
According to a joint statement, the groups would like the authorities of Caribbean countries which retain capital punishment to implement effective and constructive solutions to criminal justice issues and to remove the death penalty once and for all from the law books.
The death penalty violates the right to life as enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, they said, while adding that governments in the English-speaking Caribbean continue to cling to their belief that the death penalty is a key answer to public security concerns, despite the lack of evidence that the death penalty helps reduce crime. While deeply sympathizing with the victims of violent crime, the civil society organisations hold that the death penalty does not make societies safer.
Executions in the Caribbean are rare, they noted, but death sentences continue to be handed down by many Caribbean courts. They added that many of the criminal justice systems in English-speaking Caribbean countries are struggling with caseloads that far exceed their capacity and inadequate legal representation, lack of witness protection programmes and poor forensic services are also common.
“These deficiencies, allied to the police’s lack of adequate training, resources and poor investigative capacity as well as corruption, often result in violations of due process or the death penalty being imposed on prisoners suffering from mental disabilities,” they said.
In addition, it was noted that Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago still retain the mandatory death penalty for murder, even if international and regional human rights bodies have found the automatic and mandatory imposition of the death penalty to be an arbitrary deprivation of life as it does not allow the possibility of taking into account the defendant’s personal circumstances or the circumstances of the particular crime.
“While the world is moving away from this punishment, with more than two-thirds of the countries having abolished the death penalty in law or practice, a number of governments in the region have recently attempted to pass legislation aimed at facilitating a return to hanging in response to high levels of violent crime,” they added.
They further pointed out that the United States of America continues to be the only executioner in the Americas, but even there, positive signs have shown that the country is progressively turning against the use of this punishment, most recently with a moratorium on executions declared in the state of Oregon and abolition of the death penalty in Connecticut.
The signatories to the joint statement are the Bahamas Human Rights Network, the Belize Human Rights Commission, Selwyn Strachan (Grenada), Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (Guatemala), the African Cultural and Development Association (Guyana), Common Ground (Guyana), Guyana Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, Guyana Human Rights Association, Guyana Region of the Society of Jesus, Guyana Society for the Blind, Help and Shelter (Guyana), Red Thread (Guyana), Sisters of Mercy (Guyana), Ursuline Sisters in Guyana, Vilvoorden Women’s Organisation (Guyana), Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights, Puerto Rican Coalition against the Death Penalty, Puerto Rico Bar Association, Catholic Commission for Social Justice (Trinidad and Tobago), RED Initiative (Trinidad and Tobago), Doh Do Death (Trinidad and Tobago), Amnesty International and Greater Caribbean For Life.
