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The Rhodesia Herald,
December 10, 1969
BRITAIN’S Home Secretary Mr James Callaghan, will call Parliament next week to take the final and decisive step towards the abolition of the death penalty for murder.
A motion tabled in the Commons last night in his name and that of Mr Ross, Secretary of State for Scotland, would, if passed, renew the Abolition Act of 1965 and make the provision that the five-year experimental period should be dropped.
A similar motion has been tabled in the Lords by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner.
Both Houses will debate the motions before Parliament rises for the Christmas recess on December 19.
The Government has made it known to its supporters and the opposition that this will be a free vote as far as the Labour side is concerned.
The “shadow cabinet” will meet tomorrow to settle its tactics for the debate. All its members are said to agree that the Government should be condemned for hurrying the timetable for a decision on the continuance of abolition.
Threat to quit
If the motions are not passed in both Houses, then the 1965 Act will expire on July 31.
Mr Callaghan has no intention of bringing in any further legislation on this issue, and is thus presenting Parliament with a clear-cut choice between unqualified abolition and a return to the 1957 Act, which categorises various types of murder as punishable by the death penalty.
Mr Callaghan has told his Cabinet colleagues that he will resign rather than preside as Home Secretary over the administration of the 1957 legislation.
With the latest public opinion poll showing that 84 percent of the population is in favour of a return to the death penalty, ministers have no desire for hanging to become an election issue — with Labour advocating abolition and the Conservatives calling for retention in varying degrees.
Many Conservatives are bitterly critical of the Government’s insistence that a final decision should be taken seven months before the five-year “no hanging” experimental period is due to end.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
• The death penalty remains contentious worldwide, with some people arguing that life is God-given, and no one, let alone governments have the right to barbarically take away that sanctity.
• Zimbabwe has shown commitment towards abolishing the death penalty in line with international human rights obligations. Early this year, it commuted the sentences of 34 inmates on death row to life terms. Some African countries have also abolished capital punishment.
• Amnesty International, which views death penalty as a human rights violation, says, “although international law says that the use of the death penalty must be restricted to the most serious crimes, meaning intentional killing, Amnesty believes that the death penalty is never the answer. ‘The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, not a solution to it.’”
• Britain successfully abolished the death penalty in 1969 for treason, and it was completely eliminated in 1998, with the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights of 2004, prohibiting the restoration of capital punishment for as long as the UK is a party of it. Will it be restored after Brexit?
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