Committee lobby against death penalty
As debate on the abolition of the death penalty continues, the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs says it will lobby parliamentarians to amend the law and abolish the capital punishment.
Chairperson of the committee Peter Dimba said this in an interview on Saturday after the parliamentarians held an enquiry at Zomba Maximum Security Prison on the death sentence.
During the enquiry, the committee members, who were accompanied by officials from the Centre for Human Rights Education Advice and Assistance (Chreaa) and Reprieve, also engaged 22 prisoners who are currently on death row.
Dimba said despite no President signing for any execution for death row prisoners, the death penalty remains a psychological torture to the prisoners, among others.
He said: “Since 1994, no President has signed a death warrant to have those prisoners on death row executed but the fact that in our laws we still have the death sentence it means it still tortures them [death row prisoners],” he said.
Dimba also decried the conditions that death row prisoners are subjected to stressing that it worsens them mentally which is not ideal.
He, therefore, said it would be important that the law be scrapped stressing that it will provide certainty to prisoners that are convicted of murder.
In a separate interview, Chreaa executive director Victor Mhango agreed with Dimba, saying it would only be right for the death penalty to be abolished, stressing that it remains cruel and against international standards.
“For us, we will be very happy to see the death row prisoners serving a sentence. They should actually know where they are going because whenever someone is arrested someone needs to know the type of sentence to be served,” he said.
Mhango said it is important that Malawians must refrain from being emotional and they should appreciate how executions were done.
On September 14 2021, civil society organisations (CSOs)
led by Chreaa wrote President Lazarus Chakwera to remove the death penalty from the law, pointing out that it is torturous to the death row prisoners.
State House press secretary Anthony Kasunda told Nation on Sunday edition of September 19 2021 that the President was reviewing the proposed measures in view of the legal framework of Malawi.
The CSOs, among others, argued that those on death row have spent more time in terrible conditions than any other convict and that in light of the severe torture those sentenced to death undergo, the CSOs wanted the President to commute the sentences of the death row prisoners in accordance with Section 89 (2) of Malawi’s Constitution.
