Is it time to reconsider the death penalty in SA? Here are the arguments for and against
· Citizen
A nation looking for answers to its violent crime crisis is regularly placing the same potential solution up for discussion.
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Coupled with the deluge of female murder victims and the murder of at least 39 people in three incidents in the space of six days, calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty have grown.
The death penalty was abolished in 1995, following a moratorium by former president FW De Klerk in 1990 that all but ended decades of one of the highest execution rates in the world.
Politicians and civil society groups weighed the merits of the argument, including police resourcing, justifiable punishments and constitutional protections.
‘Retribution’ for brutal crimes
African Transformation Movement (ATM) leader Vuyo Zungula has long called for the death penalty, stating the punishment should fit the crime, not the government’s utopian ideals.
“The death penalty serves as the ultimate punishment for the most egregious crimes committed. It would work to send a strong message that there is a zero tolerance to such crimes.
“We currently have crime laws that work for a perfect environment. We need laws that respond to the threats as we see them,” he told The Citizen.
Zungula said he supported giving people an opportunity to declare how they felt about the issue through a referendum.
“That’s what referendums are for, to give people a voice on matters. A referendum must be a decision of the people, which must be executed by the arms of the state.
“The death penalty offers retribution for the heinous crimes committed. It is an answer to families and victims that feel the government is sympathetic to hardened criminals and not victims,” said Zungula.
Can police build successful cases?
Chairperson of the portfolio committee on police Ian Cameron said he understood the desire to see the most callous criminals punished for their crimes against the innocent.
“They want the person responsible to face the most serious consequences. But my first question is: how do we know the state would execute the right person?” he told The Citizen.
Cameron questioned whether government could be trusted with such a mammoth responsibility, noting its poor service delivery record and the abysmal state of policing.
Stats Cameron obtained from the South African Police Service show that at 27 of the country’s worst-affected stations, less than 10% of murders ever resulted in prosecutable suspects, with the national average at 7.3%.
Coupled with under-resourced police stations, Cameron said detectives were simply unable to perform their duties at the level required for accurate capital punishment.
“It shows how many murder investigations fail to reach even the next stage. An execution cannot be undone if the state gets it wrong.
“The death penalty is often presented as an election slogan. It will not answer an emergency call, identify a suspect, process forensic evidence or put a sound case before a court. We need to fix those things,” said Cameron.
Referenda power with the president
On putting the ball in the court of the people, Cameron explained who could take the first steps towards such a vote.
“The constitution gives the president the power to call a national referendum in terms of an Act of Parliament.
“Parliament can consider the legislation involved, but even a vote in favour would not, by itself, restore the death penalty,” said Cameron, adding that the Constitutional Court would likely have the final say.
Cameron insisted that giving the police the means to fight crime, from sector patrols and detectives, through to crime intelligence, forensics, prosecutions and incarceration capacity, should come before the drastic alternative.
“Those are concrete improvements victims’ families can measure, but I am not asking families who have lost someone to be patient with the status quo.
“I am saying we should demand a system that can find the perpetrator, prove the case and enforce the sentence. Right now, that is where the state is failing them,” Cameron concluded.
Former ANC and Cope member Dennis Bloem, now of Activists and Citizens Forum, backed improved resourcing and a referendum.
“Yes, we fully support a referendum on the death penalty. The people must decide, not the government. Our country has become a war zone.
“But we must be proactive, not reactive. To get rid of this violent crime, the government must strengthen the intelligence capacity; crime intelligence must infiltrate these criminal groupings.
“That is the only way we are going to win the fight against these criminals,” Bloem told The Citizen.
‘Constitutional protections’
Projects and Publications Manager at the Institute of Race Relations Terence Corrigan stressed the extreme nature of capital punishment.
“Once it is done, it is final, and can’t be reversed. It is a big thing to take a human life, under any circumstances. Get this wrong, and there is no means of restitution,” he told The Citizen.
He questioned its effectiveness as a deterrent, but conceded that many forms of punishment were proving ineffective, settling on a pragmatic view.
“Doing so would mean meddling with fundamental constitutional protections. These are not perfect, but we are left less protected if they are gone, and more open to state abuse.
“For this, we would get a punishment that would likely not deter some of our worst predators, and misdirect attention from the durable solutions to crime: a trained, capacitated, motivated police service,” Corrigan said.
He warned against political meddling, stating referenda reduced “complicated matters into simple choices”, and risked aggravating the population further.
“We’d be better off actually getting a handle on those issues that stoke such discontent, than embarking on the dismemberment of the constitution.
“Scapegoating constitutional protections will ultimately set a dreadful precedent, and leave us more vulnerable than we are now,” Corrigan concluded.