By Austin Kaluba
“PUNISHMENT is the way society expresses its denunciation of wrong doing and in order to maintain respect for the law, it is essential that the punishment inflicted for grave crimes should adequately reflect the revulsion felt by the great majority of citizens for them.” – Lord Denning.
Though more than five decades have elapsed since Alfred Thompson “Tom” Denning made the above statement, the words still have a particular relevance concerning the debate on whether to abolish or retain capital punishment
Recently, a lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Zambia, Landilani Banda called death sentence “state-sanctioned murder” and concluded that it therefore must be abolished.
According to Mr Banda there is no legal, political or religious justification for maintaining the death penalty in the laws of the country.
Speaking when he appeared before the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs, Governance, Human Rights, Gender Matters and Child Affairs, Mr Banda said he has been receiving views on whether the death penalty should be abolished or not.
“There is no valid reason to maintain death sentence in the statutes of Zambia. Being on death row alone causes so much anguish and suffering to the convict that most of them actually die on death row,” Mr Banda said.
Earlier this month, the Human Rights Commission said Amnesty International described death penalty as a “premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the State”, and should therefore, be abolished because it is a violation of fundamental human rights.
Making a submission on the same subject, the Zambia Prisons Services wants the law on death penalty be abolished and instead substituted with ‘progressive’ types of punishments.
Senior Assistant Commissioner Chrispin Kaonga told the parliamentarians that death penalty was unproductive and costly.
“The way forward on death penalty in Zambia is that the Constitution has maintained it as necessary piece of law.
He said it was unfortunate that Zambia had not yet ratified the Second Optional Protocol on International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966 which provides for the abolition of the death penalty.
He said as the number of death roll prisoners increased there had not been corresponding increase in terms of cell expansion to accommodate the cadre of prisoners.
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zambia has also been promoting the abolition of the death penalty since 2000.
The Church’s crusade for the abolition of capital punishment enjoys support from human-rights groups such as the Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development.
Are the submissions from Mr Banda, the Zambia Prisons and the Human Rights Commission and the Catholic Church stance on death penalty proof enough to abolish capital punishment?
I feel not.
The Code of Hammurabi based on the historical record, a Babylonian legal code of the 18th century B.C chronicles the earliest evidence which had the record of the death penalty.
The most famous part of that book writes: “If a man puts out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. If he breaks another man’s bone, his bone shall be broken.”; that is, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”, a popular proverb now. This proves that death penalty has already been debated since ancient times. Nowadays, even though many people oppose the enforcement of the death penalty, it should be maintained.
The much mouthed and written about argument that because Zambia is a Christian Nation, it should abolish capital punishment is flawed.
Contrary to this flawed thinking capital punishment is Biblical and should be upheld in a Christian country that Zambia purports to be.
The Old Testament law commanded the death penalty for various acts: murder (Exodus 21:12), kidnapping (Exodus 21:16), bestiality (Exodus 22:19), adultery (Leviticus 20:10), homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:5), prostitution and rape (Deuteronomy 22:24), and several other crimes.
However, God often showed mercy when the death penalty was due. David committed adultery and murder, yet God did not demand his life be taken (2 Samuel 11:1-5, 14-17; 2 Samuel 12:13).
Ultimately, man commits should result in the death penalty because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Thankfully, God demonstrates His love for us in not condemning us (Romans 5:8).
When the Pharisees brought a woman who was caught in the act of adultery to Jesus and asked Him if she should be stoned, Jesus replied, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).
However, this should not be used to indicate that Jesus rejected capital punishment in all instances since he was simply exposing the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.
The Pharisees wanted to trick Jesus into breaking the Old Testament law since they did not truly care about the woman being stoned.
As Christians, we should fully understand that it is God himself who instituted capital punishment: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6).
His son Jesus would support capital punishment in some instances and also demonstrated grace when capital punishment was due (John 8:1-11).
The apostle Paul definitely recognised the power of the government to institute capital punishment where appropriate (Romans 13:1-7).
The proponents of abolishing capital punishment should therefore never use the Christian declaration argument to advance their crusade against death penalty since we must remember that God has instituted capital punishment.
Again some would argue that since God is love, he has mercy to an infinite degree. While this is true, it is also true to recognise his wrath to an infinite degree.
Christians should also understand that God has given Government the authority to determine when capital punishment is due (Genesis 9:6; Romans 13:1-7).
It is unbiblical to claim that God opposes the death penalty in all instances and while as Christians we should never rejoice when the death penalty is effected, we should at the same time, refrain standing against the government’s right to execute the perpetrators of the most evil of crimes.
In Zambia, the capital punishment debate is being waged against the recent alleged murder of a poor girl whose head was severed.
Whatever the argument for its abolition, the main reason capital punishment should be maintained is that it serves as a deterrent to would be offenders of grisly acts.
Abolishing the death penalty will indirectly encourage people to kill others since they won’t pay for what they have done but will instead receive slight punishment.
Without death penalty, people will not be afraid of being sentenced because they clearly know that no other sentences are more serious than the life long prison sentence.
All the arguments against capital punishment have failed to uproot the argument to have it retained thus the refusal by many authorities to abolish it.
This includes incapacitation of the criminal, a beneficial aspect of capital punishment that ensures removal of the worst criminals from decent society.
This argument also hinges on the fact that dead criminals cannot commit any further crimes.
Then there is the aspect of retribution which entails that the criminal suffers in proportion to the offence.
Anti-death penalty campaigners always argue that death is not a deterrent and usually cite studies based on one society commonly America without analysing how capital punishment has benefited other countries.
This is flawed argument and probably chosen to be deliberately misleading.
For Zambia, the only argument that can be cited is that most people who are sentenced to death hail from low income or poor backgrounds.
However, if capital punishment is meted our fairly, it should be supported especially in a Christian country like Zambia.