‘Death penalty moratorium creates limbo, move towards abolition’

 

Criminologist Haezareena Begum said it is time for Malaysia to move to the next step on the road to abolish capital punishment, considering that a moratorium on the death penalty has been in effect since 2018.

"This is a long-drawn-out period where we are moving towards abolition.

"We have many prisoners on death row and yet a long-standing moratorium on executions. I think there should be a quicker decision made, a change in the legislation itself.

"I have no complaints about the pace of the reviews of death penalty cases, but the law itself has not really changed and there are still death sentences being issued," Haezreena told Malaysiakini.

Haezreena also serves as deputy dean at the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya.

On May 29, Amnesty International reported that 38 new death sentences were imposed from January to December last year, a sharp rise from 16 in 2022.

Some 20 of those sentences were imposed after The Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 came into effect on July 4 last year with several laws amended to remove the mandatory death penalty, allowing judges to choose between the death penalty or a jail term of 30 to 40 years for capital offences.

Criminologist Haezareena Begum

However, while the death penalty is currently retained for 27 offences in Malaysia, the government imposed a moratorium on all executions in October 2018 while the last executions were carried out on May 24, 2017.

"Acting on the death sentence should not stop there. We should take the next step after removing all mandatory death penalty sentences next towards total abolition," said Haezreena.

Retrain judges

Citing Amnesty's figures of 906 as of September 2023, she said that it was illogical and inhumane to have so many people still on death row despite the moratorium in place.

"To have 38 death penalty sentences still being meted out, to me, it’s still worrying. Perhaps, the judges themselves need to be educated or retrained because the psyche of the judiciary is that we had the death sentence for so long and that certain offences deserve the death penalty.

"The tendency is to hold on to old practices as long as it is still legal.

"We need capacity building and training on all this, and we must also remember that not all judges are pro-abolition, so we need to look at this holistically," said Haezreena.

On that note, she said that Malaysia needs to take proactive steps in a progressive direction instead of tip-toeing around the issue resulting in the current bureaucratic paradox.

"We have to make up our minds. We need to get this expedited.

"We cannot keep it on moratorium just because there is resistance. We have taken steps on the road to abolition. Let’s decide to take the next step boldly," Haezreena said. - Mkini