Page 4198 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 November 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
like China and Indonesia to establish a cessation on executions and to consider abolishing the death penalty completely.
Jon Stanhope and the ACT government must be commended on the principled stance they have taken in their refusal to provide police-to-police assistance for the Chinese authorities, particularly in light of the pressures extending not only from the federal government but also from the Chinese authorities. It would be wrong to consider that the ACT stance is one of grandstanding. At all jurisdictional levels in Australia, governments have made a principled commitment to abolishing the death penalty, understanding that it is a barbaric punishment that has, and should have, no place in Australia or any justice system throughout the world.
A commitment to human rights cannot be considered negotiable or able to be compromised in light of any pressure. Any strong stance to buttress human rights in this country or around the world must be praised. Australia has made a commitment to abolishing the death penalty through the second optional protocol and through state and federal policy and law. This commitment must be maintained. The death penalty must be eliminated.
The ACT government platform with respect to the death penalty is the same as that which has been voiced by many other states, nations, organisations and groups. Amnesty International, in particular, has a strong commitment to eliminating the use of the death penalty and has described it as:
The ultimate of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments; a punishment that violates the right to life; that is irrevocable; that can be inflicted on the innocent; and that has never been shown to deter crime more effectively than any other punishments.
In line with the ACT government policy platform, this statement summarises the argument as to why the use of the death penalty should be opposed and therefore why the Assembly should support this motion. We can explain this stance in three ways. Firstly, the death penalty is irrevocable and does not allow for the fallibility of human services, such as the police and the courts. On this point it is encouraging to see that no body of professionals has been more vocal than the lawyers and judges responsible for the administration of justice in this country. Justices Ian Callinan and Michael Kirby have been particularly keen to illustrate this important fact. For example, at the Law Asia 2005 Conference in March, Justice Callinan spoke against the death penalty, explaining that his opposition to the death penalty could be summarised in one sentence:
The criminal justice system is fallible and capital punishment as a result of it is irreversible.
No more clearly can this statement be seen than in the case of Darryl Beamish, whose murder conviction was quashed earlier this year by the West Australian Court of Criminal Appeal 44 years after his conviction. Mr Beamish was convicted and sentenced to death in 1961 for the murder of a young woman, Jillian Brewer. Mr Beamish’s sentence was later commuted to a life sentence in prison and he spent 15 years behind bars before being released on parole in 1977.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .