Is death penalty the answer?

THE former justice minister and his predecessor have on separate occasions come out saying the processes to review the death sentence was underway.
Current minister Bryan Kramer wants such a review to determine whether the death sentence has resulted in a reduction of serious crime.
None of the 14 prisoners on death row has actually been executed.
Former minister Davis Steven said last year that the National Executive Council was considering the mode of execution as the death penalty was already made law in 2013 when Peter O’Neill was prime minister.
Back then, rise in serious crimes and a particularly gruesome killing of a young mother in Mt Hagen that grabbed international attention and condemnation accelerated the passage of the death penalty law. It appears now that the law will have to be reviewed with a view to repeal it instead of just exploring the mode of execution, as previously indicated.
Those on death row have exhausted all appeal avenues and are awaiting only the day of execution.
In effect, their fate has been sealed as due punishment for their crime, but the executioner has not decided on a method and day of execution.
So in effect, they languish in prison as dead men living in uncertainty.
Two of those convicted over a sea piracy case in East New Britain have been released.
Their cases also make for one of the strongest arguments against the death penalty, despite the general need for it to be part of the penal code.
The judiciary, made up of fallible human beings using fallible systems, run the very real risk of ending innocent life based on flawed prosecutions.
Time has passed since those troubled days and the hurried passage of a law which in the end has not been fully implemented.
Besides, in their efforts to create measures against serious crime, PNG legislators may have deliberately ignored the experiences of other countries which show that capital punishment has not been proven as an effective deterrent.
Of course, as a punitive measure to rid society of those guilty of crimes such as aggravated rape, murder, piracy or treason, death is the answer but whether that will prevent further such crimes is not so certain.
For this reason, the possibility of revenge in PNG context and the bigger question of the sacredness of human life, there is growing opposition to death penalty.
States have reconsidered capital punishment and international human rights organisations are pressuring other states that still practice it or are yet to execute their first death row convict as in PNG’s case.
PNG has been criticised by governments and institutions since parliament enacted the amendments to the Criminal Code to legalise capital punishment.
Such international scorn may worsen with the first execution.
While the courts have already convicted criminals, and as the Government is still to decide on how they should die, there have been repeated calls for a repeal of the law.
Whether the death penalty has helped in reducing or preventing serious crime locally, we have essentially to look to when the law was amended in Sept 2013 and the first convictions up to the present to see how the situation has been.
The weight of evidence from other jurisdictions, moral arguments against capital punishment and the Government’s apparent indecision on the actual implementation or mode of execution should be strong enough reasons to repeal this law and revert to life imprisonment for the worst of crimes.