Till death do us part

The headline in yesterday’s Straits Times (14 Nov 2018) that leapt out at the eye was not “Till death do us part” but “Malaysia Cabinet agrees to scrap death penalty”.  That is indeed eye-popping stuff because it shows how close the enemy is at the gates. The enemy is of course what the Government sees as bleeding-heart liberals who have campaigned long and hard for the abolition of the death penalty - and against which the government has fought equally long and hard to turn away. For years, the Singapore Cabinet has defended capital punishment as a necessary evil, something they found no joy in doing but had to for the greater good. And they had a staunch ally in the Malaysian Cabinet who had no qualms - until now - about hanging people for apparently the same reason.

But amid the growing pressure to do away with capital punishment worldwide (only 52 countries enforce it now), our soulmates look all ready to cave in.  If the Cabinet decision is approved by the Malaysian Parliament, capital punishment will be replaced with a minimum of 30 years in jail.  Even so, the planned move may not be as straightforward as it seems. For starters, there is the question of whether the abolition will cover every crime in the book.  While de facto Law Minister Liew Vui Keong insisted that it would, Deputy PM Wan Azizah was less sure, saying that the government would review abolishing it for murder. Muddying the waters further was an online poll that showed 82% of 22,000 Malaysian netizens opposing it – upset by the death of a baby who was physically and sexually abused while in the care of a babysitter. DAP MP Ramkarpal Singh insisted that the death penalty should be allowed in murder cases involving child victims – and he is an advocate of abolition!

Their sentiments also mirror the conundrum facing the government and abolitionists this side of the Causeway. Abolitionists’ main arguments for abolition range from the inhumanity of taking a life to the irreversibility of the death penalty in the event of a wrong verdict, but not all of them are sure about  the wisdom of a blanket repeal. Take the case of Annie Ee, the intellectually disabled girl who was “tortured” to death by a husband and wife who were supposed to be her minders. Many netters were outraged that they got away with custodial sentences instead of being charged with murder which carries the death penalty. And what of more heinous crimes like mass murder? Should the murderer be shielded from death even though he had done the same to scores of innocent people in the most horrific way? We could go on that even if the murderer were put to death, one life for so many is scant justice to the victims and their families.

Indeed what lies at the heart of the conundrum is the sense of justice. At the end of the day, people must feel that justice has been served. If they feel that the law protects the perpetrator rather than the victim, then it is a failed law however one may argue from the humanitarian point of view. The sense of injustice coming from the knowledge that no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s crime, he will not have to suffer death, is a powerful one. This - plus the fact that he has a choice whether to do it while his victim doesn’t - is the reason behind the government bucking the global trend against the death penalty. And long may it continue.