Death row hangings to resume
by Michelle Elphage
FORMAL blocks from a United Nations protocol have been cleared and hanging of death row prisoners will be resumed here, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon announced yesterday. "The conditions under which...capital punishment will now be...imposed are properly clarified and the reflection of the conclusion of all the constitutionally mandated interventions should soon allow the commencement of capital punishment in Guyana", he told reporters. "I don't believe that the impediments that the legal system and the administration face exist at this point and time," the Secretary to Cabinet said at his regular press conference at the GTV 11 studio in Georgetown. Regarding outstanding appeals against the death sentence to the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), the top Government official said he was advised that "in the context of the articles in the protocol, that our denunciation would have no retroactive impositions and it would deal, from 5th of April, on cases that have not previously occupied the attention of the Commission." Luncheon told reporters the UNHRC has sent notification that the denunciation of Guyana of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights will take effect on April 5. Equally, the country's re-accession to the covenant, with the death penalty reservation, takes effect the same date, he explained. "The receipt on the 5th of January by the appropriate authorities in the UN provided for the denunciation of specific articles in the Optional Protocol and also for Guyana's (re)accession to an Optional Protocol with our stated reservations," Luncheon said. "It means that barring cases that have been brought to the attention of the human rights body, and are currently being dealt with...no longer would the State of Guyana be obliged to address the provisions of the Optional Protocol in dealing with the imposition of the death penalty after the exhaustion of all constitutional provisions in Guyana." He said that according to the articles in the Protocol, the mandatory delays and periods have expired and "we have been notified that on the 5th of April, the Optional Protocol with Guyana reservations has been entered into..." Article 12 (1) in the Optional Protocol states that any signatory to the Optional Protocol may denounce the agreement at any time by written notification addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations. But the denunciation will take effect three months after the UN receives the notification from the State party. Hanging of death row prisoners was suspended because of appeals against the death sentence under the protocol. Last year in Geneva, the UN High Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution on the question of the death penalty, calling on all those states which still maintained the capital punishment to restrict the number of offences for which it may be imposed. It also called on them to consider suspending executions with a view to completely abolishing them. The Geneva meeting also concluded debate on the rights of death row prisoners and according to a report, while some member states considered the punishment applicable in some instances, others felt the choice of whether or not to use the death penalty was a matter of sovereign decision-making by countries and their citizens. According to the 1998 report from Amnesty International (AI), 99 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, while 94 still retain it. Guyana is in the latter grouping and among those countries which maintain the death penalty for ordinary crimes and are known to have carried out an execution in the last 10 years. There have been 22 executions in the country within the last 13 years. "In accordance with Article 12 (1) of the Optional Protocol, the denunciation will take effect for Guyana, three months after the date of receipt of the notification, i.e on April 5, 1999. Due note has been taken of the reservation contained in the instrument of accession. "In accordance with Article 9 (2), the Optional Protocol will enter into force for Guyana, three months after the deposit of the instrument, i.e, on April 5, 1999," a section of the UN response to Guyana states. The Chronicle understands that about three death row cases have approached the UNHRC for redress, but only one case has actually received a decision. The international body ruled last year that convicted Essequibo murderers Abdool Saleem Yasseen and Noel Thomas be freed on the grounds that the State "violated" some sections of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, before, during and after their convictions. Yasseen and Thomas, twice convicted of murdering Yasseen's half-brother Abdool Kaleem, have been imprisoned for the last 12 years with the death sentence hanging over their heads. Guyana became a party to the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights on February 15, 1977, and acceded to the Optional Protocol 16 years later. The Optional Protocol allows individuals who claim to be `victims of violations' of the rights set out in the covenant to approach the Human Rights Commission for redress.
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