EMN
Dimapur, July 8
The Asian Centre for Human Rights has called for abolition of death penalty in India and said that the country has been imposing such penalty without conforming to international standards for fair trial.
The Human Rights group says, India continues to impose death sentence even on juveniles though the same have been reversed when the issue of juvenility was brought to the notice of the courts.
ACHR in its report says, “Imposition of death penalty without ensuring respect for the fair trial standards provided under international human rights standards constitutes arbitrary deprivation of the right to life. Such death penalty is nothing but judicial murder”.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) requires that death penalty may be imposed only in the most serious crimes and further that the trial must meet the highest standards of fair trial as provided under Article 14 of the ICCPR.
The study says, India as a member of the United Nations ought to comply with customary international human rights standards relating to death penalty including United Nations (UN) Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty, UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary, UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, UN Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors, UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, and UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
The study highlights that India has not been complying with its obligations under the ICCPR and has indeed been imposing death penalty without legal sanction. While the violations of international fair trial standards such as denial of legal assistance of the defendant’s own choosing at every stage of the proceedings and trial without delay are plenty, this report highlights six critical instances of imposition of death penalty without legal sanction.
First, judicial discretion is one of the cardinal principles of independence of judiciary which stands violated in case of mandatory death penalty as it prevents any possibility of taking into account the defendant’s personal circumstances, the circumstances of the particular offence and any related mitigating factors by the judiciary. The UN Human Rights Committee has stated that “the automatic and mandatory imposition of the death penalty constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life.
Though the Supreme Court had declared mandatory death sentence as unconstitutional in 1983, the government of India continued to enact laws to provide for mandatory death sentence while the courts too continue to impose mandatory death penalty under various laws including Section 27(3) of the Arms Act of 1959, Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1985, the Scheduled Caste and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989, and the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Maritime Navigation and Fixed Platforms on Continental Shelf Act of 2002.
