The Debate On Hanging And Miscarriages Of Justice
A concept ill-used to avenge
Killing is murder, and that’s a raw truth
Why this need for revenge?
It sinks to the criminal level
A depth morality eschews
The death penalty, more attuned for the devil
No moral society should choose.”
-StanleyCooper (1926-)
Somebody in government wants to bring back capital punishment. But, to his credit, the Minister of JusticeRauf Hakeem seems to have his reservations. He is quoted as having stated that judicial executions must only be re-introduced after a national referendum. Capital punishment for crimes is almost as old as history, both here and elsewhere. The ancient maxim, an eye for an eye, etc, was liberally interpreted. A person could be subject to capital punishment not only for murder but for various other crimes as well. Usually, capital punishment was associated with torture and other degrading and what we would now call barbaric methods. These were authorised and sanctioned not only by the ancient Sinhala and Tamil kings but even by the first two of our colonial rulers. The British annexed the Maritime Provinces from the Dutch in 1796 and in 1802 issued a Proclamation abolishing ‘all inhumane punishments which were in force under the civil law as administered on thisIsland’ and death by hanging was the only sanctioned form of capital punishment.
Capital Punishment has remained in our statute books to this day. There were, at various times, attempts made to abolish the death penalty but they never succeeded, even though supported by some of the highest political, civil society and legal figures in the country. In 1958, the S W R D Bandaranaike’s Government managed to get a Bill passed by Parliament suspending capital punishment for an experimental period. But even earlier, since the new Government came into power in 1956, no executions had been carried out. But ironically, the assassination of Bandaranaike followed soon after. The government of Bandaranike’s widow got through a Bill in Parliament to repeal the Suspension of Capital Punishment Act and judicial executions resumed thereafter. However, towards the tail end of the term of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government, a decision was made not to enforce the death penalty administratively. Since then, all condemned prisoners have been saved from the gallows. The last execution took place in June 1976.
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