THE Bar Council and civil society groups have called on Putrajaya to keep its promise to abolish the death penalty.

Malaysian Bar president George Varughese said there have been pushbacks against the move especially from the families of the victims of crime.

“In respect of the family of victims of heinous crimes like murder, we take the position that if you insist that the death penalty is retained, that is in effect advocating murder for murder. What we are doing is basically taking away life for a life which was lost – that cannot be right and good for society,” he told reporters after a roundtable on the death penalty.

“We have come to the conclusion that it is not the role of the government to exact revenge for the victims’ families.”

He pointed out that the death penalty has never served as a deterrent to crime, and crime rate has not reduced despite the existence of the death sentence.

Instead of maintaining the death penalty, the government could put in place legislation and policies for social support, which could be in the form of compensation claims, for the families of victims.

The Bar Council said this is an area that requires further study.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni Kaliemuthu, who was present at the roundtable session, said the government must not cave in to pressure from those fighting to retain the death penalty.

She urged the government to exude a stronger political will and commitment in abolishing the death sentence and also make a strong pronouncement in the upcoming Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, Switzerland, which is to be held this month.

Shamini said two-thirds of the world has abolished the death penalty while Malaysia belongs to the one-third that has the death penalty in place.

The government, she said, should adhere to the announcement made by Law Minister Liew Vui Keong on October 10, that a bill will be tabled to abolish the death penalty. 

M. Ramachelvan, co-chairperson of the Bar Council’s Task Force on Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission, said a 30-year prison sentence is a sufficient replacement for the death penalty.

On the topic of wrongful convictions, he said it is not known how prevalent such cases are due to the absence of movements like the Innocence Project in the US, which reviews every case. 

According to him, there are more convictions as opposed to non-convictions at the high court level. About 25% to 50% of these convictions would get overturned at the appellate court, and there is a further revision at the Federal Court thereafter.

This, he said, shows the fallibility of the system and the possible mistakes in the verdicts given by judges. 

“You do have people who get convicted, who would be bearing the death penalty as imposed and could very well be innocent,” he said.

He said when it comes to drug offences, the drug mules are the ones facing the repercussions instead of the masterminds.

A Penang Institute research conducted in 2018 found that, on average, 27.7% of high court and 50% of Court of Appeal death penalty case judgments are overturned by the immediate higher courts.

Suaram’s executive director Sevan Doraisamy said that Sirul Azhar’s case is one example of how things could have gone wrong if it is not for the way the circumstances has panned out. 

“If he was hanged, and with the change of the government he could have given new evidence which could lead further into this case, we couldn’t have reversed Sirul’s life. Luckily he is stranded in Australia.

“Two important questions that were not answered are motive… and if at all he was following orders, whose orders was he following… so this truth is more important to the family members than seeing him hanged,” he said.

Varughese drew reference to a 1979 case on the murder of Jean Perera Sinnappa, where Karthigesu was charged, tried and convicted based on initial evidence, but which was eventually found to be wrong, adding that it is an example of things going wrong in court.

He said even one life lost is good enough a data to remove the death sentence. – March 4, 2019.