ROME, MAY 26, 2009 (Zenit.org).-
Togo will soon be the latest country to abolish the death penalty, its minister of justice affirmed at a congress on capital punishment in Rome.The announcement was made Monday at the IV International Congress of Justice Ministers on Monday, hosted by the Community Sant'Egidio and attended by ministers, government officials and policy advisers from around the world.The congress was titled "From the Moratorium to the Abolition of Capital Punishment: No Justice Without Life."A press release from the community reported that Kokou Biossey Koné, Togo's justice minister, affirmed that the West African country's decision to abolish the death penalty came about due to the friendship that unites his country with Sant'Egidio.
Although Togo proposed the abolishment last December, the legislation is set to pass this week.Koné said the Sant'Egidio community had been in close contact with the government about this decision for over a few years.ProgressRepresentatives from 23 countries took part in the congress in Rome, which brought together parties on both sides of the issue of capital punishment. The community's president, Marco Impagliazzo, affirmed that this congress shows that the abolition of the death penalty represents a "new moral level" that will be even more difficult to ignore in the international scope.He noted that these congresses have helped many countries understand the necessary steps in order to move from maintaining capital punishment to abolishing it.
At the beginning of the 20th century only three countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Today, they are 93.Impagliazzo noted that Europe is the "first continent in the world without the death penalty. Today, no country can join the European Union if the death penalty is not abolished from its legal system."In Africa, he said that progress is being made, "where more and more countries are abolishing the death penalty." He noted the abolishment of capital punishment in Rwanda, Gabon, Burundi and Togo.The Sant'Egidio president said that the majority of Asian countries maintain the death penalty, as well as most states in the United States.Impagliazzo added, however, the progress being made in the United States, noting that New Mexico abolished capital punishment in March.New Jersey abolished the death penalty two years ago, and similar laws are under discussion in Nebraska, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Montana.
3 comments:
The Death Penalty: Not a Human Rights Violation
Dudley Sharp, contact info below
Some wrongly state that executions are a human rights violation. The human rights violation argument often comes from European leadership and human rights organizations.
The argument is as follows: Life is a fundamental human right. Therefore, taking it away is a fundamental violation of human rights.
Those who say that the death penalty is a human rights violation have no solid moral or philosophical foundation for making such a statement. What opponents of capital punishment really are saying is that they just don't approve of executions.
Certainly, both freedom and life are fundamental human rights. On this, there is virtually no disagreement. However, again, virtually all agree, that freedom may be taken away when there is a violation of the social contract. Freedom, a fundamental human right, may be taken away from those who violate society's laws.
So to is the fundamental human right of life forfeit when the violation of the social contract is most grave.
No one disputes that taking freedom away is a different result than taking life away. However, the issue is the incorrect claim that taking away fundamental human rights -- be that freedom or life -- is a human rights violation. It is not. It depends specifically on the circumstances.
How do we know? Because those very same governments and human rights stalwarts, rightly, tell us so. Universally, both governments and human rights organizations approve and encourage taking away the fundamental human right of freedom, as a proper response to some criminal activity.
Why do governments and human rights organizations not condemn just incarceration of criminals as a fundamental human rights violation? Because they think incarceration is just fine.
Why do some of those same groups condemn execution as a human rights violation? Only because they don't like it. They have no moral or philosophical foundation for calling execution a human rights violation.
In the context of criminals violating the social contract, those criminals have voluntarily subjected themselves to the laws of the state. And they have knowingly placed themselves in a position where their fundamental human rights of freedom and life are subject to being forfeit by their actions.
Opinion is only worth the value of its foundation. Those who call execution a human rights violation have no credible foundation for that claim. What they are really saying is "We just don't like it."
copyright 2005-2009, Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS, VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
http://www.dpinfo.com
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPinformation.htm
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/links/dplinks.htm
http://www.coastda.com/archives.html
http://www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/death_penalty_debate.htm
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com
http://yesdeathpenalty.googlepages.com/home2 (Sweden)
http://www.wesleylowe.com/cp.html
How bad can death penalty repeal efforts get? The New Mexico & New Jersey Examples
Dudley Sharp, contact info below
"Rebuttal to Governor Richardson - Repeal of the Death Penalty in New Mexico"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/19/rebuttal-to-governor-richardson--repeal-of-the-death-penalty-in-new-mexico.aspx
"Why did Gov. Richardson repeal the death penalty? His legacy"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/31/why-did-gov-richardson-repeal-the-death-penalty-his-legacy.aspx
"DEAD WRONG: New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission"
Response, at bottom. One of four responses to New Jersey Assembly Speaker Roberts.
http://hallnj.blogspot.com/2007/12/case-for-repealing-death-penalty.html
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Some notes on New Mexico:
Specific anti death penalty arguments may have had no effect on the final outcome.
First, those arguments are, easily, rebutted or countered.
Secondly, New Mexico lawmakers state that the Democratic election propelled the death penalty repeal.
From The (Santa Fe) New Mexican newspaper: "Friday's decisive state Senate vote to repeal the death penalty in New Mexico was a direct result of November's election of several new lawmakers." The repeal bill's sponsor, Rep. Gail Chase said she was able to get the bill through because the 2008 election added three more senators to the Democratic majority" "District Attorney Lem Martinez, who spoken against the repeal bill, said "the Senate vote was the result of (President Barack) Obama's coattails." ("Senate backs death-penalty repeal", Steve Terrell, 3/13/09)
Furthermore, the newest anti death penalty issue, cost, had nothing to do with it.
The New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) was, clearly, in error, with their cost evaluations in their bill analysis - a fact which I pointed out to the NM legislature. First, New Mexico used a North Carolina cost study, which had no relevance in New Mexico. Secondly, the LFC misinterpreted the study, which actually finds the death penalty to be less expensive than a true life sentence, the opposite of the LFC statement.
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally
essays http://homicidesurvivors.com/categories/Dudley%20Sharp%20-%20Justice%20Matters.aspx
How is encouraging the sentence of life without parole rather than capital punishment immoral or contrary to philosphical principles? Such a sentence better serves justice and the possibility of reform for the offender.
I suppose it depends on where you begin the philosophical discussion. To begin as you suggest with capital punishment as a form of justice fails to hit the mark on several fronts. First, the death penalty does not bring justice to the crime. Secondly, it ignores other aspects of incarceration such as reformation and restoration of the offender.
However, capital punishment rightly begins where John Paul II put the discussion - as a form of self-defense. The Catholic Church maintains that the only reason one can take another life is in the act of self-defense. That is the basis of the just war theory as well as capital punishment. If lethal force is the only way we have to protect society, then we may employ it. However, if we can protect society through non-lethal means, we have an obligation to do so.
If that is the case, then proponents of the death penalty are saying that we lack the means to protect society, which is absurd. Such an assertion would lead to widespread panic, and if true we'd have more violence than we do. However, such is not the case. The very fact that executions in our country have been steadily declining while violent crimes has also declined tells us something. Capital punishment is not just and it does not work.
Returning to the notion of self-defense, even our legal system recognizes this principle. If, for example, someone attacks me and I have the ability to defend myself without resorting to lethal means, then I have an obligation to do so. Otherwise, I could be charged with manslaughter or homicide. More fundamentally, however, I would commit an unjust act. Now, if that's true with respect to an individual and self-defense, it is also true for the state and a nation in the cases of capital punishment and war.
From a religious perspective, to take away the life of an offender deprives the offender all the available opportunity to reform his or her life. It deprives them of opportunities for conversion - conversions like St. Paul who went from killing Christians in a vigilante manner to the great apostle to the Gentiles. Imagine if we employed your so-called logic and executed St. Paul!
I have been to prison both as an inmate and as a volunteer. I have seen people change for the better - even those with sentences of life without parole.
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