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Death Row Inmates Get Their Day in Court Johannesburg Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya Four death-row inmates will on Friday ask the Johannesburg High Court to free them because they believe their detention is unconstitutional. Willie Aaron Sibiya, Purpose Khumalo, Jacobus Geldenhuys and David Nkuna were all sentenced (in separate cases) before the 1995 Constitutional Court ruling that the death penalty was constitutionally invalid. Although the death penalty has been scrapped, the four are technically still on death row because they have not had their day in court to be re-sentenced. They therefore describe themselves as "convicted but unsentenced accused persons, awaiting the imposition of 'lawful punishment' as envisaged by the order in" the Constitutional Court judgement doing away with the death penalty. The four argue that "they are detained under death sentence warrants, that the death sentence was declared unlawful, and that their continued detention must be unlawful". They "demand production by the state of a lawful warrant of detention in respect of a lawful sentence lawfully imposed". Their counsel was also expected to argue that the law under which they are being held, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, is unconstitutional because it does not provide for an appeal against whatever sentence a court passes as an alternative to capital punishment. In the ruling in which the Constitutional Court obliterated capital punishment from the statute books, the court ordered that all death-row prisoners be returned to the courts and appear before the judges who had sentenced them so new arguments would be heard on alternative sentences. But "the process of substitution envisaged [in] the Act is unconstitutional, as it violates the right to a fair trial", the four inmates say in the papers. The state is expected to argue that the court ruling that "all such persons will remain in custody under the sentences imposed on them until such sentences have been set aside in accordance with law and substituted by lawful punishment" means that detention of the four is lawful.
No single party can reinstate death penalty' By Zoubair Ayoob In spite of what campaigning political parties say, the death penalty would not be reinstated unless the law was amended by a majority vote, the South African Human Rights Commission said on Sunday. Speaking at a human rights, democracy and development function in Durban on Sunday, Human Rights Commissioner Karthy Govender said parties promising the death penalty could do more harm than good. He said a two-thirds majority in the national assembly was needed to amend the constitution. 'I realise this is obvious electioneering, but at what cost?'In addition, in some cases, six of the nine votes in the National Council of Provinces were also required while 75 percent of the national assembly needed to support an amendment to Section 1 of the constitution for the amendment to be carried out. "Given that they are unlikely to achieve this, are they not doing more harm than good? What do they hope to achieve by suggesting these changes? I realise this is obvious electioneering, but at what cost and is it worth it?" he asked. Govender said the government would not extradite a prisoner to a country which had the death penalty unless there was an agreement that the prisoner would not be executed. He said many people supported the death penalty because they believed it would reduce crime. There was, however, no scientific proof that the death penalty was a greater deterrent to crime than life imprisonment. "My view is that if you get the Justice Department and the police working properly then the death penalty becomes moot. We are failing at the level of catching criminals, convicting them and keeping them in jail," he said. Democratic Alliance (DA) constitutional affairs spokesperson Tertius Delport said parties were required to make their policies clear. "It is a matter of conscience. We are free to be in favour and we are making our stance known," he said. Delport acknowledged the DA could not enforce the death penalty and was unlikely to do so in the face of strong opposition from the African National Congress for years to come. African Christian Democratic Party leader Kenneth Meshoe was convinced the death penalty would reduce crime levels. "The fear of punishment has an important role to play in eliminating crime. Given a choice, death row prisoners will choose life imprisonment because prisoners have privileged lives. Prisoners have facilities that most South Africans don't have. No prisoner goes hungry," he said. He said the death penalty had one other use. "When you execute a prisoner you deny him the opportunity to repeat his crime," he said. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
the Community of Sant'Egidio
Abolitions, 
