Capital punishment and Celebrities
The Chief Justice of India(CJI) designate Justice Shri. Y.K.Sabharwal, in a recent interview to The Indian Express has said that in his personal opinion the death sentence should be abolished.
It is an interesting subject that too when a few former Supreme court justices and even the CJI designate too have aired their personal opinion against the capital punishment.
Why should it be abolished?
'Abolish death sentence' group have been saying "no legal killing....there is no right for even the government to take any life". But in my humble opinion they miss a point while telling so. What if the convict has become a cancer? Should one get rid of it to save oneself(society)? If you are very sure that the person who is convicted of commiting the crime which is of gravest of grave in nature and is seen as danger to the society then how can one get rid of that person?
One can argue that "give life sentence to that person and as emphasized by SC recently, life means life not any specific a few years, won't that be sufficient enough to keep that person out of society?"
Well, that is a good point but practically we all know how well our prison systems are. When there is not a single prison in the country which is out of crime/illegal activities how can one ensure that this cancer to the society could be kept away from the society?
To answer that one can say that, "then the problem is with the prison management and capital punishment is not for it".
But again, it is practically impossible to make an ideal prison so we need to resort to this option. Because the danger to the society by that cancer is more bad than the "sin" in killing that cancer. And we dont have no man islands to dump them either.
The more compassionate argument putforth is "if you have taken out his life and some years down the line if you find that the conviction was wrong then how will you bring the life back?"
Well we have a lengthy procedure for capital punishment. Appeals, right from Magistrate court to uptill the Supreme Court (SC). In addition to that we have President's pardon procedure. These appeals, pardon procedure takes years to finish and if one's innocence is not found in that period then it is almost certain that it is not going to be found in future either. And, for argument sake if one asks "what if it is found after 40 years" then, by that time the convict mostly would have died in the prison by then and what is the use of finding that wrong conviction either? Even if the convict is not dead and releasing him at his ripe stage is as good as killing him because all his life is gone how can one bring his life back, in that case too?
In India the captial punishment is given after much much contemplation. The percentage of captial punishment given and the percentage of actual execution among them is one of the least in the world. Judges in India use it very sparingly and only if they are convinced 100%. If a lower court has missed it most of the time the higher or the highest court has done that. In some cases, beyond that the presidents have pardoned some too.
Besides, capital punishment is the only option for us, now, to get rid of real dangers to the society. So keeping capital punishment alive is the best option we have. As the CJI designate mentioned, its the law of land and we need to abide by that. Law of the land is created/maintained based on the society, wrong, rights, present situation in mind. The present situation definitely does not warrants for abolishion of capital punishment. If there comes a situation that we can indeed abolish that then it would be the day where we can even think of abolishing most of the Criminal procedural code (CPC) punishments, because many of us would have turned saints.
So let this weapon exist. Let us use it as sparingly as possible. Just because it is sparingly used or just because it is a dreaded weapon or just because it could be misused or just because it could be used wrongly lets not throw it into the ocean and lose the chance of using it at the needed moment.
It is an interesting subject that too when a few former Supreme court justices and even the CJI designate too have aired their personal opinion against the capital punishment.
Why should it be abolished?
'Abolish death sentence' group have been saying "no legal killing....there is no right for even the government to take any life". But in my humble opinion they miss a point while telling so. What if the convict has become a cancer? Should one get rid of it to save oneself(society)? If you are very sure that the person who is convicted of commiting the crime which is of gravest of grave in nature and is seen as danger to the society then how can one get rid of that person?
One can argue that "give life sentence to that person and as emphasized by SC recently, life means life not any specific a few years, won't that be sufficient enough to keep that person out of society?"
Well, that is a good point but practically we all know how well our prison systems are. When there is not a single prison in the country which is out of crime/illegal activities how can one ensure that this cancer to the society could be kept away from the society?
To answer that one can say that, "then the problem is with the prison management and capital punishment is not for it".
But again, it is practically impossible to make an ideal prison so we need to resort to this option. Because the danger to the society by that cancer is more bad than the "sin" in killing that cancer. And we dont have no man islands to dump them either.
The more compassionate argument putforth is "if you have taken out his life and some years down the line if you find that the conviction was wrong then how will you bring the life back?"
Well we have a lengthy procedure for capital punishment. Appeals, right from Magistrate court to uptill the Supreme Court (SC). In addition to that we have President's pardon procedure. These appeals, pardon procedure takes years to finish and if one's innocence is not found in that period then it is almost certain that it is not going to be found in future either. And, for argument sake if one asks "what if it is found after 40 years" then, by that time the convict mostly would have died in the prison by then and what is the use of finding that wrong conviction either? Even if the convict is not dead and releasing him at his ripe stage is as good as killing him because all his life is gone how can one bring his life back, in that case too?
In India the captial punishment is given after much much contemplation. The percentage of captial punishment given and the percentage of actual execution among them is one of the least in the world. Judges in India use it very sparingly and only if they are convinced 100%. If a lower court has missed it most of the time the higher or the highest court has done that. In some cases, beyond that the presidents have pardoned some too.
Besides, capital punishment is the only option for us, now, to get rid of real dangers to the society. So keeping capital punishment alive is the best option we have. As the CJI designate mentioned, its the law of land and we need to abide by that. Law of the land is created/maintained based on the society, wrong, rights, present situation in mind. The present situation definitely does not warrants for abolishion of capital punishment. If there comes a situation that we can indeed abolish that then it would be the day where we can even think of abolishing most of the Criminal procedural code (CPC) punishments, because many of us would have turned saints.
So let this weapon exist. Let us use it as sparingly as possible. Just because it is sparingly used or just because it is a dreaded weapon or just because it could be misused or just because it could be used wrongly lets not throw it into the ocean and lose the chance of using it at the needed moment.
posted by Kupps at 2:08 PM
2 Comments:
Wow!
Former attorney General, Soli Sorabjee's (Soli loquies in The Indian Express) view on death sentence mirrors yours truly's opinion ;).
Who said only great minds think alike? Sometimes great minds too think like mindless :)
A crystal clear view of former CJI R.C.Lahoti's view on capital punishment.
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=81184
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