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The Rhodesia Herald,
July 21, 1979
LONDON. – The House of Commons has given a decisive “no” to an attempt to reintroduce the death penalty in Britain.
With 362 MPs voting against and only 243 for, the motion was thrown out by a majority of 119 – twice as many as had expected.
In spite of a demonstrable increase in violent crime and terrorism especially in Northern Ireland – Thursday night’s majority was only 10 fewer than in 1975, the last time the subject was debated in Parliament.
The matter is now probably settled for good: Capital punishment will not return to Britain as whole in even the remotely foreseeable future.
Pro-hanging MPs backed by the police and opinion polls suggest, the majority of the electorate, knew that if they failed to get their motion accepted this time, they probably never would.
Neither the government nor the opposition applied the whip to last night’s vote, enabling MPs on both sides to vote according to conscience.
The Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, whose friend and confidante, Mr Airey Neave, was killed by an Irish car bomb earlier this year, was in favour of a return of the death penalty.
In spite of that, the most eloquent plea against its reintroduction in this debate came from the Home Secretary, Mr William Whitelaw, who must shortly decide whether or not to commute the death penalty on a man in Jersey.
Mr Whitelaw told the House there were “immense complexities” in returning to the penalty.
Terrorist murders would cause special problems because organisations would use killers below the age of 18 knowing that it was extremely unlikely that they would be hanged at that age.
There was also the risk of reprisals, he said, since no terrorist organisation would stand by while one of its members was tried and convicted of capital offence.
There have been no executions in Britain since 1964. Capital punishment was abolished in 1965.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
- Hanging is an inhuman and cruel way of meting out justice on people on death row and more nations are progressively moving towards abolishing it.
- Although the country’s laws provide for hanging, there has been no death by hanging since 2005 with the last prisoners to be hanged being the notorious pair of Stephen Chidhumo and Edgar Masendeke.
- President Mnangagwa has been fighting for the abolishment of the death penalty after having survived the gallows during colonial rule in the 1960 on grounds that he was below 21 years.
- It is always important to abide by the majority vote in any voting process.
Online Reporter