A solely subjective view on the death penalty

Prof. Ravindra Fernando in an article in the Sunday Times (August 5), makes some highly dogmatic pronouncements regarding the death penalty - (“The debate for or against the death penalty should not be opened, it should never open”). He seems to insult the intelligence of all who disagree with his subjective (and often inaccurate) views. In his article, he presents his subjective opinions as though they were foregone conclusions.

Prof. Fernando confidently states that “the death penalty does not have a deterrent value…Nowhere has the death penalty been shown to deter crime”. He implies that it is only countries with disregard for human rights, that carry out the death penalty, by listing Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan while claiming that they carried out the most executions.

How does he explain the fact that Japan and Singapore and the United States (which can scarcely be called backward countries) retain the death penalty and both Japan and Singapore have extremely low levels of violent murder?

Prof. Fernando needs to update some of his information: only about a month ago , Japan executed seven murderers, the leader and followers of the Aum Shinrikyo Cult, and during the same week, India’s Supreme Court confirmed the death by hanging for the men convicted of the savage rape and murder of a medical student in 2012. Singapore hanged eight people in 2017, according to the Amnesty International website. The notion that “backward” countries retain the death penalty is false.

The Professor makes cer- tain contradictory conclusions. For example he says that “History shows that in Sri Lanka over a long period of time repugnance of the death penalty has been felt…” but on the contrary, it has existed from the times of Sinhalese Kings. He also mentions the attempts by the Legislative Council as early as 1928, to abolish the death penalty, acknowledging that “All these attempts failed”. So where was the repugnance towards the death penalty ?

Another false argument, repeated by Prof Fernando, is that innocent persons may be executed as has happened in the past. He cites an execution which occurred in 1950, in England. Today, scientific advances such as DNA testing and advanced pathological tests can be used to establish a person’s identity with 100% certainty. Further, strong legal safeguards can be introduced to prevent mistakes.

The death penalty must never be used to assassinate political prisoners, as happens in Saudi Arabia. In fact it could reasonably be limited to the execution of those who commit the rape and murder of children. In Sri Lanka there has been a spate of such murders recently.

“I am certain that President Sirisena would not execute anybody”, concludes Prof. Fernando, (despite the recent pronouncements to the contrary by the President himself). The Professor is absolutely correct- because the Sirisena- Wickremasinghe government has introduced this debate as a distraction from the urgent unsolved issues facing the country.

JAYMAN Via email