Skip to main content arrow-down arrow-tail-right arrow-triangle-right calendar camera compass download email eye facebook flag mail phone pin play send square-right tag twitter youtube badge message

Malaysia could lead way in abolishing death penalty

  • DPP in the Media
  • 2 Nov 2018

Originally published in The Times, 2nd November 2018 (Read online)

Recent moves to end capital punishment show that change is possible even in the strictest countries

By Saul Lehrfreund, Co-Executive Director of The Death Penalty Project

Malaysia’s cabinet has recently made clear its intention to table a bill abolishing the death penalty.

If passed, Malaysia will join most of the world’s nations that have rejected capital punishment. The announcement is a dramatic change of policy given that it was one of only 23 countries that carried out executions last year and is where the death penalty is automatically imposed on conviction for murder, treason and certain drug trafficking and firearms offences.

The potential human impact of this decision is staggering. The death row population now numbers more than 1,250 and nearly half are understood to be foreigners.

The Death Penalty Project has worked with local lawyers for more than a decade to provide pro bono legal assistance to those under sentence of death. From our work we know that most of the condemned are low-level drug couriers, whose disadvantaged backgrounds and marginalised identities render them vulnerable to exploitation by trafficking gangs, unfair treatment in court and neglect in prison.

Samantha Jones, a British woman being held in Malaysia for murdering her husband, was arrested a week after the government’s announcement. Previously, if convicted her fate would have been mandatory death.

The decision could have a huge impact in the region where the death penalty is particularly entrenched: neighbouring Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand have all executed in the past three years. And advocates from nearby jurisdictions have already begun to call for those countries to follow Malaysia’s example.

The announcement is also important because it teaches us that the key to abolition is political leadership, most effectively exercised through full and frank public recognition of the inhumane realities of capital punishment, from the lack of special deterrent effect and the inevitability of error, to the horrors of death row and execution.

While public opinion is often cited as a reason not to abolish, empirical research shows that increased awareness of the realities of capital punishment diminishes support for the practice. Moreover, the experience internationally is that after abolition public support for capital punishment dwindles as the punishment comes to be regarded as outdated and barbaric.

Many countries that retain the death penalty, including some that are actively executing, maintain that they are working towards abolition. However, far too often they make vague promises without explaining how, when and, importantly, why they must progress towards abolition. It is unsurprising then that many of them have stagnated in their progress or have even taken steps backwards.

The benefits of transparency and openness are evident in Malaysia. The government’s willingness to be honest about the death penalty bodes well for the country making good on its promise.

We look forward to Malaysia joining three quarters of the world’s nations who have rejected the death penalty in recognition that it is a gross human rights violation.

Saul Lehrfreund is co-executive director of The Death Penalty Project, a charity based at the London law firm Simons Muirhead and Burton. The project has published the resource Sentencing in Capital Cases by Joe Middleton and Amanda Clift-Matthews, with Edward Fitzgerald QC, in association with Doughty Street Chambers in London

 

Latest news

Privy Council clarifies the approach trial judges should adopt when explaining “intent” to juries in The Bahamas
Read More
International Women's Day Q&A: Women in Human Rights
Read More
Cayman News Service: UK court rules against closed-door legal hearing
Read More
Cayman Loop News - Justin Ramoon, sentenced for murder, gets go ahead for judicial review
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - Privy Council refuses to allow Cayman Government to hold secret hearings in prisoner transfer case
Read More
Cayman Compass - Privy Council rules against secret trial for exiled killers
Read More
Cayman Marl Road - Privy Council refuses secret hearings in Cayman prisoner transfer case
Read More
NEW op-ed: Time to scrap capital punishment in Taiwan
Read More
Privy Council: Appeal dismissed amidst serious disclosure failings
Read More
James Guthrie, impressive barrister whose work in the Privy Council included a string of landmark cases – obituary
Read More
LATEST OP-ED: Hoyle & Jabbar - Death penalty doesn’t deter crime
Read More
New article in Kenya's The Star: Death row convicts in Kenya not threatened by penalty – findings
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - New research exploring socio-economic profiles of Kenya’s death row prisoners
Read More
Kenyan prisoners on death row weren’t deterred by the threat of the death penalty: new research findings
Read More
The Death Penalty Project pays tribute to James Guthrie KC
Read More
London-based NGO to challenge lawfulness of Guyana’s death penalty at CCJ
Read More
PRESS RELEASE - Guyana’s Court of Appeal refuses to declare the death penalty unconstitutional
Read More
The Conversation: 'Why has Kenya not abolished the death penalty? Habit and inertia'
Read More
Political and legal issues: reflections on our report launch in Kenya, Nairobi
Read More

Stay up-to-date with our work