Mr. President Please Re-Introduce The Death Penalty

By R.M.B Senanayake –June 2, 2015

R.M.B Senanayake

President Sirisena has announced that he is considering the re-introduction of the death penalty. It is a very timely decision indeed considering the heinous crimes committed daily in our country. The President will be remembered for this salutary decision if he implements it forthwith.

Man fears death more than anything else and the more heinous the death the greater the fear. This is probably why the ancients resorted to methods of killing criminals which we think today are heinous. Nothing else concentrates the would be criminal’s mind so much as the probability of punishment for his crime. If it is death then he would be more deterred from committing the crime than any other consideration. Fear of going to hell is no longer there among our people. Although all crimes are not pre-mediated yet many brutal and vicious crimes are committed after a process of thinking although the thinking is largely about how to escape being caught. The greater the probability of getting caught and punished the greater the deterrent. Similarly, the greater the punishment greater the probability of deterring the crime. The only argument against the death penalty is the probability of human error in the process of judgment and conviction in courts. But our law and legal procedures are heavily weighted 9 in favor of the accused that this probability is greatly reduced. The Judges too will impose the death penalty with caution and confine it to pre-mediated murder. They too are more likely to weigh in favor of the accused and give him the benefit of the doubt. So we need not worry too much that an innocent man would be hanged. The probability is more that a criminal who deserves the death sentence may go scot free or get a lesser punishment than the death sentence which h deserves considering the nature of the crime. According to the former Chief Justice Sarath Silva only 4% of those accused of crimes are convicted. In Japan it is 97%. So here lies another problem- the low rate of convictions. But it reduces the risk of an innocent man being hanged.

*Our women and girls are wantonly raped and killed as the incidents in Jaffna and Kahawatte have shown. Picture – Vithiya Sivaloganadan, raped and ordered in Jaffna    Read More