Gov’t open to referendum on death penalty -Granger

By Stabroek News On In Guyana News |
UN team meets President on death penalty: President David Granger (centre) is flanked by, from left to right: Khadija Musa, Resident Representative of the United Nations; Baron Marc Bossuyt, President Emeritus of the Constitutional Court  and Member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; Navi Pillay, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Former Judge of the International Court of Justice; Ivan Simonovic, Assistant Secretary-General, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Rajiv Narayan, Senior Policy Adviser, Secretariat of the International Commission against the Death Penalty and Derek Lambe, Head of Political Press and Information Section, Delegation of the European Union in Guyana. The meeting took place yesterday at the Ministry of the Presidency. (Ministry of the Presidency photo)
UN team meets President on death penalty: President David Granger (centre) is flanked by, from left to right: Khadija Musa, Resident Representative of the United Nations; Baron Marc Bossuyt, President Emeritus of the Constitutional Court  and Member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; Navi Pillay, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Former Judge of the International Court of Justice; Ivan Simonovic, Assistant Secretary-General, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Rajiv Narayan, Senior Policy Adviser, Secretariat of the International Commission against the Death Penalty and Derek Lambe, Head of Political Press and Information Section, Delegation of the European Union in Guyana. The meeting took place yesterday at the Ministry of the Presidency. (Ministry of the Presidency photo)

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.