Malaysia agrees to abolish mandatory death penalties

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has agreed to abolish the mandatory death penalty and allow judges to set alternative punishments for a range of offences, the country’s law minister said on Friday.

The government will study other proposed punishments for 11 offences that currently trigger a mandatory death sentence and also for the more than 20 offences that carry a potential death sentence at the court’s discretion, law minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said in a statement.

Amendments to the law would still need to be tabled and passed in Parliament before they would take effect.

“The decision on this matter shows the government’s priority to ensure the rights of all parties are protected and guaranteed, thus reflecting the transparency of the country’s leadership in improving the dynamic criminal justice system,” the minister said.

More than 1,300 people are on death row in Malaysia, with most cases involving drug trafficking.

The death penalty in Malaysia mandates hanging as punishment for a range of crimes, including murder, drug trafficking, treason, kidnapping and acts of terror.

Foreigners account for 526 of the 1,355 people on death row in the country, according to the Anti-death Penalty Asia Network.

In 2018, Malaysia said it would abolish the death penalty for all crimes and halt all pending executions.

But it backtracked in 2019 due to opposition from political rivals and murder victims’ families, saying that the death penalty would no longer be mandatory for selected offences.

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had planned to present to parliament a bill to end the mandatory death penalty in March 2020, but his government collapsed before that could happen.

Rights groups welcomed Friday’s announcement but said the agreement was only a starting point.

“Before everyone starts cheering, we need to see Malaysia pass the actual legislative amendments to put this pledge into effect because we have been down this road before, with successive Malaysian governments promising much on human rights but ultimately delivering very little,” said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Katrina Jorene Maliamauv, Amnesty International Malaysia’s executive director, said the move was a step in the right direction but urged Malaysia to go further and work toward full abolition of the death penalty.