Good morning,
HE Maria Castillo Fernandez, Ambassador—Designate and Head of EU Delegation to Malaysia;
HE Mario Sammartino, Ambassador, Embassy of Italy, Kuala Lumpur;
HE Carlos Domínguez Díaz, Ambassador, Embassy of Spain, Kuala Lumpur; and
HE Edmund Bon, Malaysia’s Representative to ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to welcome each and every one of you to the launch of the #AbolishDeathPenalty Campaign 2016 in conjunction with the recent World Day Against Death Penalty on 10 Oct 2016.
The Malaysian Bar is honoured to join our coalition partners — the British High Commission, the EU Delegation to Malaysia, the Embassy of Switzerland, the National Human Rights Commission (“SUHAKAM”), Amnesty International and Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall with the support of the Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty in ASEAN (“CADPA”) to launch this Campaign.
For this event, we are pleased to host, Toshi Kazama, a well–known photographer and anti–death penalty activist based in New York, whose work focuses on the value of human life and respect for fellow human being, as seen through the eyes of the families of the victims and of executed inmates. We had hosted Toshi in 2013 and 2014 in Malaysia, and we are honoured to have him with us again today.
He will share with his photo exhibition “Eyes on Preciousness” which will be exhibited from today until 23 Oct 2016.
The photo exhibition is part of the series of activities with that the Coalition partners will organise in Kuala Lumpur.
Joining forces since 2011, the Coalition partners have organised public fora, university debates, stakeholder roundtables and meetings with government officials and parliamentarians.
Recently, on 10 Oct 2016, the Coalition partners launched its social media campaign with the hashtag #AbolishDeathPenalty.
The Malaysian Bar has been, and remains, in the frontline of the battle to uphold and preserve the rule of law, fundamental constitutional rights, the administration of justice and law and order. In this regard, we have consistently called for the abolition of the death penalty.
The Malaysian Bar’s primary opposition to the death penalty is because life is sacred and every person has an inherent right to life. This is vouchsafed in Article 5(1) of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia that eschews arbitrary deprivation of life. We take the view that the right to life is a fundamental right which must be absolute, inalienable and universal, irrespective of the crime committed by the accused person.
There is a scarcity of information on people on death row and executions in Malaysia. This is regrettable, and certainly does not lend support to those who claim that the death penalty is a deterrent.
In Parliament on 18 May 2016, the then–de facto Minister of Law, Nancy Shukri said that there were some 1,041 inmates on death row for murder, drug trafficking, unlawful possession of firearms and kidnapping but yet there was no decision on abolishing the mandatory death penalty.
On 24 Mar 2016, the Malaysian Bar called for the halt of the executions of Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu, Ramesh Jayakumar and Sasivarnam Jayakumar but sadly the three Malaysians were executed on 25 Mar 2016.[1] Most recently Ahmad Najib Aris was executed on 23 Sept 2016.
Since 2010, the Malaysian Government has announced its willingness to review the mandatory death penalty, with a view to its possible abolition or the reintroduction of a discretionary death penalty.
In 2015, both the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of law and the Attorney General have spoken of the Government’s intention to introduce legislation in Parliament to cease the use of the mandatory death penalty.
At the recent 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, organised in Oslo (Norway) held from 21 to 23 June 2016, the then–de facto Minister of Law, Nancy Shukri announced that Malaysia was one step closer to amending the mandatory death sentence with the completion of a government–backed study and a position paper by the Attorney General’s Chambers on the death penalty in Malaysia.[2]
We are optimistic that the Malaysian Government would be tabling the amendments in this October 2016 Parliament sitting.
While these laudable initiatives appears to have been in the context of the mandatory death sentence for those convicted of drug–related offences, the Malaysian Bar is of the view that the death penalty should be abolished irrespective of the crime that may have been committed.
The decision on the punishment for offences should be left to the discretion of the Judiciary. The death penalty has no place in a society that values human life, justice and mercy. Persons sentenced with the mandatory death penalty should be resentenced to imprisonment.
Further in light of the impending review of the mandatory death penalty, the Government should, in the interest of justice, declare and implement an immediate official moratorium on any and all executions. All death sentences should be stayed pending the results of the review. It is unfair and unjust to carry out the death sentence when there is currently a possibility of reform which, if put into effect, should apply retrospectively.
In Malaysia, some of us will still recall the famous 1970s case of Karthigesu, who was wrongly convicted for murder and later acquitted. Needless to say, the opportunity to right a wrong would not have been available if the death sentence had been meted out. Then, we as a society would have been collectively responsible for having sent an innocent man or woman to their death. It would be cold comfort to the deceased person’s loved ones for us to say that the system is not free from error. The burden of imposing a sentence of death is great and leaves no margin for natural human error.
The Malaysian Bar therefore reiterates its call on the Malaysian Government to abolish the death penalty, and in the meantime to put in place an immediate moratorium on its use pending its abolition.
Finally, I thank all of you present here for supporting today’s event.
We look forward to your continued support and participation in the future. Let us together work to abolish the death penalty in Malaysia.
Karen Cheah Yee Lynn
Secretary
Malaysian Bar
19 October 2016