The recent statement of the Australian High Commissioner in Pakistan that death penalty needs to be abolished has evoked a mixed reaction from the general public. Out of the 198 UN States, death penalty is in vogue in 56 countries. A critical analysis of the issue doesn’t help one in answering this question :Is the rate of crime less in the countries where the capital punishment is in vogue than the countries in which it stands abolished?
The concept of death penalty for heinous crimes isn’t new. It has travelled to us from times immemorial. This punishment was in vogue in the Ancient Greece as well as in the Roman Empire.
Arguments both in favour and against death penalty are quite convincing.
One can, however, say without any fear of contradiction that incidence of suicide bombing and other serious type of terrorism was quite on the high side when the death penalty had been put in a state of suspended animation in this country. It fell down considerably when the government started hanging the arrested terrorists after their fair trial. No doubt in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia also, to mention a few, crimes do occur but a cursory glance over them reveals that their incidence is quite small because of enforcement of death penalty there as compared to the countries where death penalty is not enforced.
Granted that there is a lot of wisdom in the proverb that if nine out of ten killers go unpunished it doesn’t matter but one innocent should not be hanged but once any person accused of an offence whose punishment is death penalty is convicted by a court of law and he loses in the courts of appeals also then justice demand that no leniency should be shown to him.
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