Unseen victims of death penalty

Growing campaign

According to the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, more than 142 countries around the world have abolished the death penalty with 106 of them abolishing the punishment for all crimes.  Eight countries have abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes and 28 countries are abolitionist in practice. In 2018, the top 10 executioners were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Iraq, Egypt, the USA, Japan, Pakistan and Singapore.

Uganda has seen a growing campaign to abolish the death penalty following a 2009 Constitutional Court ruling in favour of then death row inmate Susan Kigula and others, who had argued that the death sentence was unconstitutional.

The court did not rule that the death penalty is unconstitutional. But it ruled that the punishment should not be mandatory in cases of murder. It also ruled that a condemned person should not be kept on death row indefinitely; that if a convict was not executed within three years, the sentence be automatically turned into life imprisonment.

According to expert interpretation, by effectively and technically abolishing the mandatory death penalty, the court abolished the death penalty on those respects.

In August this year, Parliament followed up by passing a law that abolishes the mandatory death penalty for certain crimes and amending four different laws that had earlier prescribed capital punishment; including the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Article 22 of the Constitution retains the death penalty but it recognizes that it can only be carried out once the due process has been exhausted meaning that the sentence has been confirmed by the appellate court (Supreme Court).

Ssegona says once the court struck down the mandatory death penalty, it created a legal vacuum.

“Once this element of punishment is struck down as unconstitutional, it is of no effect and therefore the section is incomplete and therefore there is no offence called murder, treason, terrorism,” Ssegona explains in reference to Article 28 (12) of the Constitution which says nobody shall be charged with an offence which is not laid down by law. He said matters should not be left for imagination in the mind of the judge hearing a case.

“That is why we took up the mantle to amend the Acts of Parliament,” Ssegona says.

Ssegona also wants the relevant section of the Penal Code Act to be amended to say a person convicted of murder “shall be liable to suffer death.” He says this means two things; one, that there is a death penalty, but two; it is not mandatory for the judge to pronounce death. Ssegona hopes that once signed into law, the amendments will restrict the death penalty to the most serious of crimes only, and only at the judge’s discretion.

The UN General Assembly has called for the establishment of a moratorium on the use of the death penalty because “by instituting the killing of a human being as a criminal solution, the death penalty endorses the idea of murder more than it fights it.”

The World Coalition against the Death Penalty; an alliance of more than 150 NGOs, bar associations, local authorities and unions from around the world, has also given several reasons to end the use of the death penalty.

The coalition argues that no state should have the power to take a person’s life because it is irrevocable and yet no justice system is safe from judicial error and innocent people are likely to be sentenced to death. The coalition also notes that not all murder victims’ families want the death penalty.

Above all, the coalition says the death penalty breaches the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to life and that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Dr. Livingstone Sewanyana, the executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) noted at the event that while many Ugandans  may ask why on earth someone who has killed another should see any recourse to mercy, the  death penalty is not an effective punishment for offenders of heinous crimes.

“As campaigners against the death penalty, under no circumstances do we condone crime; actually on the contrary, we are strong advocates for a strong policy on crime because crime must be fought at all times in all its manifestations but what we are saying is that we need effective punishment that allow for reform and for punishments that ensure a conflict free society.”

“We need more investments in the administration of justice in Uganda,” he said, “We need more investment in the courts, the institutions that promote access to crime, police and other agencies to ensure effective investigation and deterrence of crime not necessarily to go for reactionary measures like the death penalty.”

The FHRI has been carrying out surveys over the years on the attitudes of Ugandans towards the death penalty. In 2016, 64% of the respondents in the nationwide survey said no to the death penalty while 36% said yes to the punishment. Sewanyana said another nationwide survey will be done in 2020 to establish the current attitudes of Ugandans.

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