President David Granger has said that he will be guided by the National Assembly and the public on the retention or abolition of the death penalty, while noting that government is willing to go to a referendum on the issue.
“I would say in the final analysis, the democratic course of action should be to rely on the expressed opinion of the National Assembly and, in the final analysis, of the people themselves. If the people want to go to referendum—referendum is something [that is] very expensive but let the people speak,” he said yesterday, during a recording of the ‘Public Interest’ interview programme. This particular section was released by the Ministry of Presidency ahead of today’s broadcast of the programme.
Granger made the comments a day after top UN and European Union officials met with key government ministers and members of the judiciary to continue calls for Guyana to scrap the death penalty all together, given the fact that its continued retention on local law books conflict with international humanitarian law. The team yesterday met with Granger at the Ministry of the Presidency.
The president said that he is advised by the National Assembly and the people of Guyana. “Guyana is an independent sovereign state and it is not for me to get ahead of what the people want. Right now…I do not envisage any circumstances under which I would be willing to assent to the death penalty, even though it remains on the books,” he noted.
Reminding that there has been a moratorium on the use of the death penalty for two decades, he said that if Cabinet and the National Assembly were to consider it and “even if there was a deadlock, we could go to a referendum. Let the people say what they want to occur in this jurisdiction.”
Granger added that a referendum would ensure openness, transparency and consultation. “What do the people want? That is my approach [and] I do not see any circumstances now to make a change. I am aware of the advice which was given. I have my personal views which I have stated publicly,” he further said.
Navi Pillay, Commissioner of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, told reporters ahead of a Judicial Colloquium on Wednesday that Guyana should remove the inclusion of the death penalty from its law and particularly from the Terrorism Act which was passed last year. Two other officials who accompanied her pointed out that the death penalty does not deter terrorism or any form of criminality but acknowledged that it is up to the people of Guyana to decide if it should remain on the law books.
Pillay had said that the UN has very specific requirements for counter-terrorism measures. “It must still comply with international humanitarian law, so we will add our voice to ask Guyana to advance forward and not to go backward. We are very aware that this country has made many advances. This country should be very proud that for 20 years there has been no execution there has been a moratorium… Internationally and in the United Nations almost 160 countries have signed up either to a moratorium or abolition and that is what we want, as a first step, Guyana to take, is to formalise it, make it into law,” she said.
Reminded that Guyana is the only country in South America with the death penalty in the laws, though it is not being enforced, the President was asked if abolishing it is a priority for government.
“Any government has a wide range of priorities… Right now, persons who have been convicted and sentenced to death need not fear that the penalty would actually be carried out. My greatest priorities are alleviation of poverty and the abolition of illiteracy,” Granger said in response.
He added that he is concerned with human beings “who deserve a good life and if I free our young people from the burden of illiteracy and dropping out of school, if I can free our mothers and women from poverty, those are my big concerns. I am not killing anybody. I am not about to order the execution of anyone.”
“It is not one of my priorities to order the death penalty and as I said I await the advice of the National Assembly and the public,” he stressed.
No rush
Later, during a post-Cabinet press briefing, Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman told reporters that the Guyana government does not see any pressing need to remove the death penalty from its terrorism legislation and other laws.
“We, as the president rightly said, don’t relish taking life wantonly, [we] have no intentions of enforcing it but, at the present time, government is not rushed to remove it from the books. Should we do so, we will …have widespread consultations with the people of Guyana,” he said, during the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing.
Pillay, a South African jurist, along with two other human rights experts—Ivan Šimonović, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and Emeritus Professor Marc Bossuyt, Emeritus President of the Constitutional Court of Belgium—later attended a Judicial Colloquium on the Abolition of the Death Penalty at which the Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) Carl Singh, judges and magistrates were in attendance. During their visit, they met with the Attorney General as well as the Minister of Public Security.
Pillay, while speaking to reporters, had expressed concerns that the Terrorism Act, passed last year, has 12 provisions providing for the death penalty. She said too that she has noticed the President’s strong statements against the death penalty and singled out a recent comment from him in which he said he would never execute anyone. “That is a very important statement and it has to be translated into law now. We just don’t want rhetoric,” she said.
Trotman, when asked about government’s position on the issue, noted that the removal of the death penalty has come up twice in recent months. He reminded that last year the EU sponsored a forum which addressed the issue. Government’s position, he said, was articulated by him, which was that the death penalty is a “penalty on the statute books of Guyana. We are aware indeed that recent laws dealing with countering terrorism include the death penalty. Those laws…brought us into compliance with [the Financial Action Task Force], which are internationally recognised standards. So, we are found or placed in a position where credible international organisations are calling on us to enact certain laws which we comply with so that we may not be put on certain lists….”
Pressed as to when consultations might begin, Trotman said at the moment government is not in a position to say that “we will be entering into consultations to add to the penalties or to remove them. We don’t feel the impetus placed on us right now right now.”
Trotman recalled that when he addressed the conference on the death penalty late last year, it was days after the terrorist attacks in Paris and the point had been made that “even now within the EU there is a strong clamor for the return of the death penalty.”
He said that the president of Turkey is now himself calling for such a restoration.
According to Trotman, government recognises the jeopardy that even some of the EU states are facing where they are “now caught up in the throes of terrorist attacks on their home soils and right wing parties, in particular, are calling for the restoration of the death penalty and we have the matter under active consideration.”
