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By Mark DaCosta- Capital punishment, known in Guyana as the death penalty is still part of local law. It is the state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime. In Guyana, following a trial, a court may pass a death sentence. This orders that an offender be killed by the State. The killing is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is said to be condemned, and is commonly referred to as being “on death row.”
While the death penalty remains on the law books, the last judicial killing took place in 1997. As such, Guyana is said to be “retentionist,” in that it retains the law while not carrying out the practice. At this point, the question arises: if Guyana does not intend to use the death penalty again, why not simply remove it from the law. However, abolition of the death penalty law in Guyana is being resisted by the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime – the regime abstained from voting regarding the 2020, and 2022 United Nations moratorium on the death penalty. This, despite the fact that the practice is being increasingly viewed as barbaric, uncivilised, and outdated.
Additionally, in December 2022 the local Court of Appeal refused to strike down the death penalty as being unconstitutional. Regarding that ruling, the Court of Appeal was considering the cases of three former Guyana Defence Force Coast Guards, Devon Gordon, Deon Greenidge and Sherwyn Harte, who in 2013, were found guilty of the robbery and murder of Dweive Kant Ramdass. The trial judge imposed death sentences on all three defendants. The three men appealed to the Court of Appeal. Although the Court declined to strike down the archaic law, the Court removed the sentence of death and replaced it with life imprisonment.
Some people have posited that Guyana does not need to have a death penalty enshrined in law because the State – such as it exists in 2023 – carries out extra-judicial killings as a matter of course. In any case, Guyanese should consider if they want a law – in the law-books – that permits the government of Guyana to legally kill any of its citizens.
As things stand there are about 27 Guyanese on death row.
Internationally, at the end of 2022, 53 countries – including Guyana – retain the death penalty, 111 countries have completely abolished it in law for all crimes, seven have abolished it for ordinary crimes (while maintaining it for special circumstances such as war crimes), and 24 are abolitionist in practice. Countries that still carry out the death penalty include China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States of America, in order from the highest to lowest numbers of killings.
The international organisation Amnesty International has articulated arguments against the death penalty. The organisation has stated the following:
REASONS TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
It is irreversible and mistakes happen
Execution is the ultimate, irrevocable punishment: the risk of executing an innocent person can never be eliminated. Since 1973, for example, more than 191 prisoners sent to death row in the USA have later been exonerated or released from death row on grounds of innocence. Others have been executed despite serious doubts about their guilt.
It does not deter crime
Countries who execute commonly cite the death penalty as a way to deter people from committing crime. This claim has been repeatedly discredited, and there is no evidence that the death penalty is any more effective in reducing crime than life imprisonment.
It is often used within skewed justice systems
In many cases recorded by Amnesty International, people were executed after being convicted in grossly unfair trials, on the basis of torture-tainted evidence and with inadequate legal representation. In some countries death sentences are imposed as the mandatory punishment for certain offences, meaning that judges are not able to consider the circumstances of the crime or of the defendant before sentencing.
It is discriminatory
The weight of the death penalty is disproportionally carried by those with less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds or belonging to a racial, ethnic or religious minority. This includes having limited access to legal representation, for example, or being at greater disadvantage in their experience of the criminal justice system.
It is used as a political tool
The authorities in some countries, for example Iran and Sudan, use the death penalty to punish political opponents.
