KUALA LUMPUR: Gerakan wants the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government to abolish the mandatory death penalty but retain capital punishment to be at the judges’ discretion.
Party president Datuk Dr Dominic Lau said many Malaysians still support the idea of the death penalty as they regard it as effective in dealing with criminals.
He said the government should give judges the power to decide whether a person deserves to receive this most severe punishment.
“There many other options available if the mandatory death penalty is removed such as imprisonment for life where the person serves his life in jail or life imprisonment, where a person serves 30 years in prison,“ Dominic said.
For example, he cited when the case involves drugs it is usually a willing seller, willing buyer scenario but when it comes to murder it is the decision to take someone’s life.
He said there have been instances when witnesses in drug trials lied while giving evidence in a drug trial to ensure conviction.
Lau cited the example of a case fought by Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo, where a student facing the death penalty for drug trafficking was freed after a police officer admitted he lied during the trial.
“A drug trafficker maybe given a second chance but the total abolishment of the mandatory death sentence will be unfair to the family of a murder victim, whereby the murderer gets a second chance, but what about the victim, there no second chance,“ he said.
He urged the government to take such issues into consideration when tabling the bill during the coming parliamentary to abolish the death sentence.
He said Gerakan had fought successfully to remove one of the eight mandatory death sentences when Barisan Nasional was in power.
He said today seven still remain and they are offences against the King, committing terrorist act, murder, attempted murder while under a life sentence, hostage-taking resulting in death, discharging firearm in the commission of a scheduled offence and being an accomplice in case of discharge of firearm.
