Should Capital Punishment Be Reintroduced In The United Kingdom - Essay Example

Should Capital Punishment Be Reintroduced In The United Kingdom? Capital punishment for murder in the United Kingdom Capital punishment was a common practice in the United Kingdom for handling serious crimes including murder until 1960s when legal reforms led to its abolition. The last hangings in the country happened in 1964, shortly before laws outlawing the practice were passed in 1965 and 1973 in Great Britain and Northern Ireland respectively. Although, the death penalty has been carried out since 1965, human rights legislations and EU Directives have technically abolished the practice since then. The ratification of the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in 2004 is a typical case of the international influence of the UK law, which outlaws any attempt to reintroduce death penalty in the United Kingdom for length of time that the country will be part of the Convention. The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 The Murder Act 1965 deferred capital punishment for convicts of murder in England, Wales and Scotland for half a decade, and slackened the rules for a compulsory life sentence. The statute further stated that if, within the five-year period of suspension, the legislative arm of government passed a motion making an extension to the period within which the Act would be valid, then it would form part of part of UK’s permanent body of laws. In 1969, a proposal was made to the Houses with an intention to extend the period of validity of the Act to a permanent status, which was immediately adopted by both Houses in the third quarter of the same year. And to follow suit, the Northern Ireland also abolished capital punishment in July 1973 following the passage of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 19731. Crime and Disorder Act 1998 The Crime Disorder Act 1998 abolished death penalty in the UK for serious crimes of treason, piracy and technically for murder. Section 36 of the Act replaced the capital punishment for treason and violent piracy acts as enshrined in the Piracy Act 1837, with a lighter sentence of a maximum life imprisonment. Despite the seemingly unrelated nature of the crimes to murder, the crimes were previously classified under the same category of most serious crimes in the country’s history. In light of this reasoning, a lesser sentence for piracy and treason should have the same effect on sentencing for murder cases2. Human Rights Act 1998 The reform of sentencing for capital offenses in the United Kingdom since 1964 have been influenced by the growing need to preserve human rights from historical violations. In particular, the Human Rights Act 1998 outlaws any public institution from acting in a manner that principally contravenes the ECHR), unless the provisions of any other key statutory regulation have no alternative solution. The Act also requires courts of law and tribunals to consider any directions, verdicts or counsel of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and to give their legal interpretation the widest of consideration in conforming to the Convention’s provisions on human rights3. The Convention setup the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which deliberates on appeal cases of murder from member states. Any murder convict who believes his or her human rights have been trampled upon by a member state can therefore petition the court for a fairer hearing. Owing to the primary impact of the Convention in preserving the sanctity of human life, judgements establishing violations of human rights through death penalty by any member state are binding and must be implemented by the membership. In light of this, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe follows up on the implementation of the Court’s orders including pushing for the settlements of the fines and damages granted by the Court to the aggrieved parties. In addition, the setting up the Court to safeguard the public from human rights violations by member countries is an important tool within Convention that can be construed to mean it does not approve of death penalty for murder cases. The Convention provides hapless individuals a proactive role across states, and reverses the traditional trend of states as the only entities recognized in the international law as legitimate actors. As of now, the European Convention under Article 2 is the only Treaty guaranteeing people of such a high level of protection of human life4. The European Convention on Human Rights Article 2 of the ECHR safeguards an individual’s right to his or her life and practically seeks to punch holes on death penalty. It is notable that the right to life is only applicable to human persons, not to other living creatures, or legally recognized entities such as companies5. And as to whether the termination of the life of an embryo in a mother’s womb can be taken with much weight as the execution of a murder convict as far as what constitutes a human being is concerned, the Court has declined embryo’s enjoyment of human rights6. In the case of Evans v. the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights deployed utmost care to avoid any unfavourable ramifications that could have resulted from the definition of a human being. The outcome of the case could have severely impacted reproductive rights and regulations in the whole of Europe. Owing to an embryo’s lack of human traits and ability in law, in 2007 the Court decided that an embryo does not have the qualities of a human person to warrant its enjoyment of human rights. In Vo v France, the Court ruled in the same way by declining prayers to allow an unborn baby to enjoy human rights. The Court indicated that by construing Article 2 of the Convention to include an unborn baby, it would be unreasonable in legal application. The judges then imposed three primary responsibilities on states under Article 2. These are: a responsibility to avoid unlawful executions; b) a responsibility to probe suspicious deaths and; c) a positive duty to deter foreseeable deaths. The first duty of states according to the Court, grants governments some immunity for murder executions after a judicial process. But then, the exception carries no weight under Protocols 6 and 13. Whereas, Protocol 6 outlawed the implementation of capital punishment on a temporary basis, Protocol 13 outlaws death penalty in any circumstances including for serious crimes such as murder7. In light of this, the UK does not need to contravene the Protocols that it helped develop by reintroducing death penalty. The second duty of states under Article 2 states that death caused by self-defence or of others; or when apprehending a criminal suspect or fugitive; or when neutralizing riots will be legal under the Article when the use of force was absolutely necessary. In light of these conditions, the United Kingdom as a signatory to the Treaty can only exonerate herself from the executions under Article 2 for any loss of life which is the result of lawful confrontations involving the use of force. Murder convicts facing death penalty do not present such complications to law enforcers, at least judging by the ECtHR’s decisions. The ECtHR had not been faced with any cases which required the interpretation of Article 2 of the Convention with regards to the sanctity of life until mid-1990s. In the case of McCann v. United Kingdom the Court issued a verdict to the effect that the option enshrined in the second paragraph does not imply states are allowed to kill, rather they may be considered blameless if their use of force is absolutely necessary and has resulted in the loss of life. Subjecting a murder criminal to death penalty does not warrant the use of force; it is unlawful under the UK’s laws such as The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, and such convicts do not prompt state agents to act against themselves in self-defence8. Further, The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union provides that economic and social rights of citizens do not constitute justiciable rights. In light of this Charter, death penalty is unconstitutional and ought not to be reintroduced in the United Kingdom. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 The Criminal Justice Act 2003 stipulates clearly the procedures which courts should follow when writing sentences for murder offenders who have been found to be guilty as charged. Under section 142(1a) offenders deserve punishment; and under sub-section (c) they should be subjected to reform and rehabilitation. In light of these provisions, recommending death penalty for convicts of murder is not punishment, since they will not have the option to learn and admit their mistakes the hard way. Meting out a proportional pain and suffering while their lives are preserved would be the better option than they being put to death. In addition, execution is not a form of rehabilitation to the individual murders. The cost of Death Penalty Despite the lack of legal backup for capital punishment, The Criminal Justice Act 2003 under section 142(1d) imposes the duty of protection of the public from murder convicts upon the state. In addition, Section 142(1b) provides for a reduction of crime by any means including by deterrence. In light of these provisions, incapacitation of a murder criminal by putting them to death can be construed to mean: a) an act which is proportional to the murder(s) that a criminal has committed; b) an effective way of reducing crime and protecting the public from such a criminal’s future criminal acts, while at the same time serving as a lesson for the public not to engage in such criminal acts9. Incapacitation, then, may call for long-term imprisonment of criminals as a way of protecting the public from their potential belligerent acts as opposed to murder. But then, keeping death row convicts in top security facilities for the rest of their lives comes at a cost. Keeping death-penalty judicial processes is also expensive. In the US, a single death-row case costs about $1.9 million above a non-death-penalty trial. In New Jersey state, for example, a whopping $253 million more was spent on death-row cases between 1983 and early 2010. These moneys should be diverted to help with deterrence measures rather than implementing the costly death penalty. Death penalty is somewhat a miscarriage of justice. Opponents of the practice have cited five reasons: a) the possibility of wrongful convictions; b) the slow pace of the appeal process; c) its vengeful rather than proportional nature; d) its arbitrary application by state agencies, and e) death penalty is akin to state-sponsored murder10. Punishment of suspected criminals for offenses which they did not commit has led to many people being put to death “unlawfully11.” False confessions, poor lawyering, government misconduct, false positive outcomes of forensics, and eyewitness misidentification are some of the common grounds for wrongful convictions, which cannot be put above reproach for a fair trial12. In the historic English law case of R v Wallace [1931] 23 Cr App R 32, the issue of wrongful conviction for murder prompted a re-examination of the evidence, which led to a successful reversal of the conviction. The English court of appeal determined that the earlier ruling was unreasonable due to the admission of bad evidence. The appellate court established that William Hebert Wallace did not get a fair trial under Section 4(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907, following the murder of his wife. Had the defendant been executed straight away, he would have been put to death for a crime that he did not commit, hence the need not re-introduce death penalty. American Law Unlike the more explicit criminal laws of the United Kingdom which have been reformed from the execution of convicts of murder and other capital offenses, the American case law has a lower bar for death penalty13. In the case of Furman v. Georgia [1972] 408 U.S. 238, the United States Supreme Court set a condition requiring a consistency of the facts and the evidence for the implementation of death sentence cases14. In Gregg v. Georgia [1976] 428 U.S. 153), the court invoked the Eighth Amendment’s provisions outlawing any brutal and weird punishments to decline death penalty. Capital punishment meets these adverse treatments of human beings15. The ruling was a reversal of the earlier conditional death sentence as set in the case of Furman v. Georgia. Yet in the case of McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987), the US Supreme Court upheld the death sentencing of the defendant for armed robbery and murder. In arriving at the ruling, the Court established that the skewed nature of death sentencing based on race as depicted in statistics was not sufficient enough to warrant a reversal of the sentence16. Conclusion The criminal laws of the United Kingdom had previously legalized death sentence before parliament made the first attempt to outlaw the practice in mid 1960s. Since then, a raft of legislations driven by the need to preserve the sanctity of human life and other human rights from violation has led to a complete outlaw of the practice in the country. The Directives of the ECtHR based on legal interpretations of the European Convention on Human Rights have equally outlawed death sentence not only in the UK, but also in other member states of the ECHR. Death penalty is a cruel and weird form of punishment that violates the human right to life and should not be reintroduced in the UK because it is unconstitutional. 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