Delroy ChuckDelroy Chuck
SINCE 1988, in Jamaica, the judicial sentence of death has not been carried out. The judges complain regularly that they pass the sentence but do so in vain, as it appears the executive lacks the will or competence to impose it. Initially, the government blamed the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) and constitutional lawyers for delaying the process, now it argues that the Opposition is holding up the process. What nonsense!
Incompetent men and weak leaders will always contrive excuses for their inaction and failure.
From as far back as 1991, I said publicly that during the tenure of this government the death penalty will be de facto abolished and, I can safely predict, that it will not be carried out for at least the next three years, certainly while this government is in power. If Jamaicans are not by now aware, it is time you are, this government talks the talk, makes announcements ad nauseam, promises the heavens peren-
nially, and uses public relations as the main tool of governance, but when it comes to walk the walk, to implement anything worthwhile, or translate talk to action, it fails.
GOVERNMENT'S INCOMPETENCE
The government's incompetence to execute the law, to implement legislative enactments effectively, and to distinguish announcements from achievements, has affected every area of national life and is
largely responsible for the failure to carry out the judicial sentence of death. In the area of the death penalty, no one can factually or sensibly accuse the Opposition of impeding or opposing the execution of the death penalty, as the Opposition's policy is to leave it to an individual's conscience. To my sure knowledge the Opposition Spokesman on National Security, Derrick Smith, has repeatedly called for it. The last time the death
penalty was carried out in 1988, it was under a JLP Minister of Justice, Oswald Harding, who was and is passionately against the death penalty but, as a member of government, knew his duty and executed it.
Personally, I am against the death penalty and will do my utmost best to have the legislature remove it as a judicial sentence even while fully acknowledging that once it remains the law the executive has a duty to enforce it. Recent legislative discussions have bolstered my hopes that the death penalty will soon be abolished de jure, as it should. The government has entered into International Conventions and Treaties that have stymied its ability to create any new offences for which the sentence of death can be imposed, which means that this talk about repatriating our sovereignty, by removing the Privy Council, is nothing but talk. Thus, under the Terrorism Prevention Act, which is now before a parliamentary committee, no act however dastard, premeditative and deliberate that endangers life and causes death can attract the death penalty.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL
In the recent case of Lambert Watson, the JCPC ruled that the 1992 amendment to the Offences Against the Person Act was unconstitutional, which required another amendment. In the House, I cautioned that aspects of the new amendment would be deemed unconstitutional if it seeks to remove the mandatory death sentence and re-impose the discretionary death sentence on convicted capital murderers, which would be retroactive punishment. Notwithstanding that the
convicted men were already sentenced to death, the new discretionary sentence of death was not in existence when they were convicted of capital murder. I can only hope good sense will prevail and all the men on death row under the unconstitutional Amendment will have their sentence commuted. The new amendment should start de novo and only from hereon should the new discretionary sentence of death be imposed, and after hearing sentencing arguments for newly convicted capital murderers.
Worldwide nations are removing the death penalty as a judicial sentence. Its barbarity and finality cannot be justified. The lack of evidence that the death penalty deters or reduces violence is another telling argument against it. In the USA, DNA evidence showed that many murderers and rapists had been wrongly convicted and, if executed, redress would have been impossible. More persuasively, witnesses and human judgment are acutely susceptible to grave error and in such circumstances an irreversible punishment should never be imposed.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be
contacted by email at delchuck@hotmail.com
