Steven waiting for CS to give execution plan

By TREVOR WAHUNE
JUSTICE Minister and Attorney-General Davis Steven is still waiting for the Correctional Services (CS) department to say which mode of execution is to be used for people on death row.
Steven told The National yesterday that it was frustrating that the process was taking too long.
There are 16 people on death row.
Steven said the Government had funded overseas trips for CS officials and officials from other agencies to see the different modes of execution used by other countries.
“They have flown to different countries, and returned. We are waiting for them to come back and give us the cost to set up the modes of execution. It has taken them three years now,” he said. “We have given the necessary support to agencies like the CS, and the committees responsible. But they still have not shown up and directed us which way to go.”
He called on Chief Secretary Isaac Lupari to get the people and committees sitting on Cabinet decisions to start working on them.
“His job (is) to get the bureaucracy to respond because these issues are of public importance,” he said.
He said the laws required the CS commissioner to conduct the execution. He has written to the CS minister and CS commissioner “asking them to look into the issue” but there has been no response.
Steven said the death penalty had been part of PNG’s laws and enforced by judges in the past 42 years.