Mr Arthur Koestler in his essay "Drinkers of Infinity" apparently quotes these lines - "The murderer has killed. It is wrong to kill. Let's kill the murderer." that sums up the paradox of death penalty. If you ask me, I've always felt that life imprisonment should be preferred to death penalty at every opportunity. Having said that, I do realise that there can be no easy conclusions on this. The judges have been in dilemma on various occasions. "Death or life imprisonment for the murderer?" has been a tough question.
Death penalty is irrevocable and there is no question of rehabilitation of convict. Life imprisonment is revocable and rehabilitation is possible. Death penalty is more often only a symbol of condemnation of the committed crime. Among the theories of punishment - reformative, preventive, retributive, denunciatory and deterrent, only the denunciatory theory seems to be justifying death penalty. It can be easily pointed out that reformative theory is irrelevant when death is the punishment for the simple reason that death cannot reform a person. As far as preventive theory is concerned, life imprisonment and death penalty do the same job. I do not understand the retributive theory completely. I understand that it focuses on punishing the person for the act simply because he deserves it. While a lot of sources gave me an impression that it means returning of evil for evil, a supreme court judgement that I read and few other sources told me that it "implies imposition of just and not more than just penalty". In a retributive system, a punishment should be such that it "fits" the committed offence. However, this doesn't mean "eye for an eye". It only wants more severe crime to be punished more harshly. While I agree that death penalty shall have deterrent effect on the potential murderers, I doubt if it is more effective as a deterrent force than any other form of punishment. Do we have any supporting evidence to claim that death penalty is more effective in bringing down crime in the society? If not, clearly, deterrent theory doesn't justify death penalty too.When the late Prime Minister Bandarnaike of Sri Lanka suspended the death penalty in 1956, a commission of inquiry on capital punishment was appointed and its report clearly disproved the deterrent effect of death penalty. Ironically after the prime minister was killed, his widow Sirimavo Bandarnaike who became the prime minister reimposed death penalty to punish the assassin who was eventually subjected to life imprisonment.
Like I said earlier, perhaps only the denunciatory theory that holds that punishment should be an expression of condemnation of the offence by the society justifies death penalty to some extent. The society through death penalty, sends a strong message that the act is condemned. However, I'm personally very uncomfortable with human sacrifice being the symbol of a disapproval. The bitter truth is that when you talk of death penalty, you are talking about killing someone. By killing someone you are taking away someone's right to live. Whatever the circumstance is, however remotely it is, if our law itself is justifying this act, it is scary. I also tend to disagree when Supreme court in Bachan Singh v/s State of Punjab states that death penalty is only an exception and should be given in rarest of rare cases. While I appreciate the guidelines set by the court through this case without which death penalty would have just been an alternative to life imprisonment, I see a lot of ambiguity in the phrase "rarest of rare". I do not know if they have clearly defined this but even if they have done so, I strongly feel that there is still some ambiguity which has always been there in CRPC in general . Due to this ambiguity, if someone is awarded death penalty incorrectly, it completely defeats the idea of a legal system. There are numerous instances where judges themselves have had differences of opinion regarding whether a pronounced judgement was proper. Human beings are complex creatures. All convicts in the world aren't the same. All judges do not think alike. In a society where decision making is not a trivial task, deciding what fits into the "rarest of rare" cases is never easy.
The best a law can do is uphold human dignity and the right of every individual to live. I'm sure there are a lot of experts around. I'm sure I know nothing that they know but for me, killing each other is wrong. Period.
Death penalty is irrevocable and there is no question of rehabilitation of convict. Life imprisonment is revocable and rehabilitation is possible. Death penalty is more often only a symbol of condemnation of the committed crime. Among the theories of punishment - reformative, preventive, retributive, denunciatory and deterrent, only the denunciatory theory seems to be justifying death penalty. It can be easily pointed out that reformative theory is irrelevant when death is the punishment for the simple reason that death cannot reform a person. As far as preventive theory is concerned, life imprisonment and death penalty do the same job. I do not understand the retributive theory completely. I understand that it focuses on punishing the person for the act simply because he deserves it. While a lot of sources gave me an impression that it means returning of evil for evil, a supreme court judgement that I read and few other sources told me that it "implies imposition of just and not more than just penalty". In a retributive system, a punishment should be such that it "fits" the committed offence. However, this doesn't mean "eye for an eye". It only wants more severe crime to be punished more harshly. While I agree that death penalty shall have deterrent effect on the potential murderers, I doubt if it is more effective as a deterrent force than any other form of punishment. Do we have any supporting evidence to claim that death penalty is more effective in bringing down crime in the society? If not, clearly, deterrent theory doesn't justify death penalty too.When the late Prime Minister Bandarnaike of Sri Lanka suspended the death penalty in 1956, a commission of inquiry on capital punishment was appointed and its report clearly disproved the deterrent effect of death penalty. Ironically after the prime minister was killed, his widow Sirimavo Bandarnaike who became the prime minister reimposed death penalty to punish the assassin who was eventually subjected to life imprisonment.
Like I said earlier, perhaps only the denunciatory theory that holds that punishment should be an expression of condemnation of the offence by the society justifies death penalty to some extent. The society through death penalty, sends a strong message that the act is condemned. However, I'm personally very uncomfortable with human sacrifice being the symbol of a disapproval. The bitter truth is that when you talk of death penalty, you are talking about killing someone. By killing someone you are taking away someone's right to live. Whatever the circumstance is, however remotely it is, if our law itself is justifying this act, it is scary. I also tend to disagree when Supreme court in Bachan Singh v/s State of Punjab states that death penalty is only an exception and should be given in rarest of rare cases. While I appreciate the guidelines set by the court through this case without which death penalty would have just been an alternative to life imprisonment, I see a lot of ambiguity in the phrase "rarest of rare". I do not know if they have clearly defined this but even if they have done so, I strongly feel that there is still some ambiguity which has always been there in CRPC in general . Due to this ambiguity, if someone is awarded death penalty incorrectly, it completely defeats the idea of a legal system. There are numerous instances where judges themselves have had differences of opinion regarding whether a pronounced judgement was proper. Human beings are complex creatures. All convicts in the world aren't the same. All judges do not think alike. In a society where decision making is not a trivial task, deciding what fits into the "rarest of rare" cases is never easy.
The best a law can do is uphold human dignity and the right of every individual to live. I'm sure there are a lot of experts around. I'm sure I know nothing that they know but for me, killing each other is wrong. Period.
