If the National Assembly votes now on abolishing the death penalty, the measure would not pass, Presidential Advise on Governance Gail Teixeira says.
“In the Parliament, were we to take a vote at this point… it would lose,” Teixeira said while speaking at a forum organised by the non-governmental organisation Justice Institute Guyana as the World Day against the Death Penalty was observed yesterday.
Teixeira did not indicate which side would vote against the measure but when the issue of a moratorium on the death penalty came up during a debate in the National Assembly in 2010, government said that it was not prepared to move for total abolition. Opposition speakers had urged the PPP administration to go the full mile.
Amnesty International campaigner for the abolishment of the death penalty Chiara Sangiorgio, who was present at yesterday’s forum at the National Library, which saw just about two dozen persons in attendance, told Stabroek News that her organisation wants to start raising awareness as well as debate on the matter. “We are advocating for abolition,” she said.
In 2010, the government committed to hold national consultations to review the death penalty and sexual orientation discrimination over the following two years, saying the outcome would be reflected in the country’s laws.
However, this has lagged and the consultations on the death penalty are yet to be done. In its submission at the time to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), dated September 13, 2010, government noted that public opinion here continues to be strongly in favour of the retention of the death penalty at this time.
Yesterday, Director of the Justice Institute Guyana Melinda Janki noted her opposition to the death penalty and Sangiorgio said that Amnesty International would like to push for abolition of the death penalty here. While Guyana has not carried out a judicial execution since 1997, the law remains on the books and the United Nations has urged countries that still have such laws to impose a moratorium on executions. However, each time the UN resolution calling on all countries that retain the death penalty to establish a formal moratorium on executions has come up for a vote, Guyana has voted against it. The resolution will come up for a vote for the fifth time later this year.
Janki noted the “added layers of risk” in Guyana when it comes to application of the death penalty, citing among other things, poor investigations and prosecutions. Human rights advocate Joel Simpson questioned whether the death penalty is a deterrent to crime and Sangiorgio cited several studies which she said showed that it was not a deterrent to crime.
“The death penalty is supposed to deter but it is not deterring in the home, let alone in the streets,” Janki said, citing Guyana’s murder statistics, including women who were murdered by their partners.
‘Step in the right direction’
Teixeira, recalled the period when she was the Minister of Home Affairs and said that prior to the crime wave that lasted from 2002 to 2008, there was a movement in Guyana to become “softer” on the death penalty. However, she said, during the crime wave there were calls to hang the criminals and persons were saying to the President that “by not hanging that we were encouraging the criminals.” Teixeira said that she was grateful that when she was the minister, she was never called on by the government to sign the death penalty order.
She pointed to the 2010 amendments to the law as an initial step “maybe not as far as it should be” towards abolishing the death penalty. That piece of legislation allows non-capital punishment for various categories of convicted murderers, but retained the death penalty on the books. The issue of a moratorium on the death penalty came up during the debate, with opposition speakers saying the administration needs to go the full mile, and a call was also made for death row prisoners to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. However, the government said that it is willing to go only this far with the Criminal Law Offences (Amendment) Act and recognise the need for some concessions; not total abolition.
“We felt it was a step in the right direction,” Teixeira said yesterday. She said that as it relates to the abolition of corporal punishment, in the parliamentary committee, they started out on with two different sides but there has been a gradual shift and if, it was to be taken to a vote, she felt there would be a positive move.
As it relates to the death penalty, there are options available in parliament in seeking to move forward on the issue, Teixeira said. The presidential advisor said that there is still a lot of work to be done and “it has been hard going” while also describing it as a frustrating process but important if progressive changes are to be made.
But she noted, if the issue was to be voted upon in the National Assembly now, the measure would not pass.
Sangiorgio informed that Guyana had voted against the UN resolution to establish a formal moratorium on executions but Teixeira said that she was unaware of the vote. Teixeira said that sometimes when Guyana is uncertain on an issue, the representative abstains. “I can’t explain the one that you are speaking (of) because I don’t know about it,” she told Sangiorgio.
Simpson, meantime, said that there is disconnect between the local position and government position. Labelling it “schizophrenic governance,” he explained that “you are making progressive local steps but your foreign policy does not match it.”Janki said that if they are going to ask government to vote in support of the moratorium or at least abstain, then a discussion would have to be opened. There were several suggestions as to how awareness and advocacy could be increased including use of petitions, different forms of media and culture.
Teixeira also mentioned that there is not an aggressive stance here in executing death sentences and in the circumstances, there could be room for change.
