'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.