Relatedly, a female presidential candidate in the 2017 elections, made similar calls for the Government to reintroduce capital punishment. There is no criminological justification for the death penalty which would outweigh the human rights grounds for abolishing it. All these developments further invalidate the well-established standard that the death penalty should be used only for the most serious crimes in countries that have not abolished the death penalty. This means, that the requirement of respect for human rights has to include the abolition of the death penalty. It is quite ironic for a Government to respect human rights and retain the death penalty at the same time.

Source: Front Page Africa August 30, 2020 22:41 UTC