The Privy Council is right
Guest Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
July 10, 2004
THE OLD ethical saying that the punishment must fit the crime has been interpreted with strict precision by the United Kingdom-based Privy Council in the case of the mandatory death penalty legislation for capital murder passed into Jamaican law in 1992.
The purpose of the legislation was broadly to honour the ethical adage by creating two categories of murder, capital and non-capital, and in the case of the former to mandate in advance that killings falling within its definition would be considered so heinous that death by hanging would be the automatic penalty. Not so, the Privy Council has said in the case of Lambert Watson in his appeal against sentencing to death for murdering his common-law wife and their daughter. As terrible as such capital murder is, the Privy Council, in a unanimous decision, has decreed that Mr. Lawson has a right to explain the circumstances of his actions to a judge in an effort to persuade him that he does not deserve to be put to death.
Despite the various interpretations which have already been put on the ruling, this does not mean that the Privy Council has taken away from Jamaican courts their right to impose the death penalty. It is simply saying that such a final decision, in more ways than one, cannot be mandatory. The motives and circumstances that cause one person to take another's life are so complicated and different, they cannot be lumped in one category which automatically triggers the hangman's noose. It is a fundamental human right for a convicted murderer to be afforded the opportunity to plead for his life and to try to convince a judge that in his case the penalty of death does not fit the particular crime he committed. After hearing pleadings in mitigation, the judge may nevertheless decide that hanging is the appropriate punishment and put on the black cap accordingly. On the other hand, he may take extenuating circumstances into account and pass a lower sentence. The life or death decision is focused where it should be in the judiciary under the doctrine of the separation of powers.
By this decision, the Privy Council brings Jamaican law in line with what obtains in the United States of America and other countries where, after a guilty verdict, there is a subsequent penalty hearing. We think the ruling is morally right and we join with human rights advocates in applauding it even as we support Jamaica's right to maintain the death penalty and to exercise it until such time as the people want it abolished.
Our concern is that the decision of the Privy Council be seen as morally correct and that it should not be used to confuse the public that the Privy Council has ruled against hanging in all cases. (Reprinted from the Jamaica Gleaner edition of Friday July 9, 2004)