The Malaysian Bar is deeply concerned over the news reports of the imminent executions of 31–year–old Malaysian Prabu N Pathmanathan and 43–year–old Singaporean Irwan Ali in Singapore that are reportedly scheduled for tomorrow morning. Both men were convicted of separate drug–related offences, and both have been sentenced to the death penalty.
The Malaysian Bar appeals to the Government of Singapore to grant clemency, to stay their executions and commute the two death sentences to one of imprisonment.
The Malaysian Bar is steadfast in our position that every individual has an inherent right to life. The right to life is absolute, universal and inalienable, and must be held inviolate, regardless of the crime that may have been committed.
We recall the immortal words of the late Justice Ishmael Mohamed, the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa:
Death is different. The dignity of all of us, in a caring civilisation, must not be compromised by the act of repeating, albeit for a wholly different objective, what we find to be so repugnant in the conduct of the offender in the first place.
George Varughese
President
Malaysian Bar
25 October 2018