November 26, 2024
The recent calls for the resumption of capital punishment in The Bahamas raises an important jurisprudential matter in the wider English speaking Caribbean and that is the matter of capital punishment, or what we call, “hanging.”
Fact of the matter is the Privy Council in the United Kingdom has said time and time again that it would never allow for capital punishment in any form to be allowed in these jurisdictions. It seems as if the Caribbean Court of Justice is taking a similar view with it.
For countries that follow the rule of law, the highest courts in these lands have said that they won’t provide for a ruling that allows for capital punishment.
They say providing for capital punishment is against the human rights of the individual. They further claim that the amount of appeals would end up with persons awaiting the hang-man’s noose, would end up in a lengthy court battle and that within itself is cruel and unusual.
Even moreso, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have stood in the gap for those condemned and lent their support to the court and have worked assiduously over the past few decades with ensuring that international law coincides with the pervasive thought that capital punishment is cruel and unusual punishment.
Unless a Caribbean nation is willing to break this tide against it and implement capital punishment on their own, I don’t see where we will ever have the resumption of capital punishment in the Caribbean. And that may be a good thing, because capital punishment has not proven to be a deterrent to murder.