I am ex­treme­ly pleased to see that the in­ter Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights has thrown down the gaunt­let to T&T to ini­ti­ate re­form for abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty.

And so I re­it­er­ate my long held view that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has no place in a civilised de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety.

I al­so en­close (parts of) a let­ter to me from the Pres­i­dent of the In­dus­tri­al Court–lat­er to be­come Sir Isaac Hy­atali, Chief Jus­tice of T&T–in sup­port­ing my mo­tion be­fore the Sen­ate in 1971, "look­ing for­ward to the day when this bar­barism ceas­es to find a place in the statute books of the coun­try."

"The Con­sti­tu­tion em­bod­ies the pa­ra­me­ters with­in which we are gov­erned as a peo­ple. But it is not cast in con­crete.

Laws are passed by Par­lia­ment. The pas­sage of time iden­ti­fies good laws and bad laws, and it is the du­ty of our leg­is­la­tors to cor­rect the anom­alies when they are iden­ti­fied.

Re­cent events have fo­cused once more on the long-hang­ing is­sue of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and it is in­cum­bent on our lead­ers to re­vis­it this act of bar­barism.

The al­ter­na­tive to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is in­car­cer­a­tion for life with­out pa­role. And life must mean life. Some will view this so­lu­tion as more in­hu­mane than death, but it gives the op­por­tu­ni­ty for cor­rect­ing a mis­car­riage of jus­tice if and when it comes to light. Re­cent DNA test­ing in a case in Texas, USA, some 14 years lat­er, be­labours the point.

Some will say that keep­ing a pris­on­er in jail for life is a cost­ly un­der­tak­ing. But sure­ly our at­ti­tude can­not be 'kill them be­cause it is too ex­pen­sive to keep them.'

The co­gent rea­sons for abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment are in­nu­mer­able.

Cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has nev­er been a de­ter­rent to mur­der. Mur­der con­tin­ues in those coun­tries where it is the pre­scribed penal­ty, and cer­tain­ly not to a less­er de­gree–those who com­mit these acts al­ways ex­pect to elude the law. The pro­ce­dures for de­ter­min­ing in­no­cence or guilt are far from per­fect as they re­ly on a host of pos­si­ble pit­falls such as cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence, false wit­ness­es, and a ju­ry swayed by emo­tion.

But sure­ly, at the end of the day a gov­ern­ment has a du­ty to ed­u­cate and guide its peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly on is­sues in which emo­tions cause us to miss the woods for the trees.

Or am I be­ing na�ve.

Dr R.D. Mootoo