A number of constitutional challenges have forced the government to place a moratorium on hangings, Attorney General Alfred Sears disclosed in the House of Assembly on Wednesday.
The death penalty question was raised in Parliament when former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham asked the attorney general to inform parliamentarians of the government’s policy regarding capital punishment and the current status of the cases that have already been dismissed by the Privy Council.
Minister Sears said a series of cases arising out of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal found that mandatory death sentences were unconstitutional because parliament had taken away from court the right to exercise judicial discretion on the circumstances of each particular case.
He pointed out that the Privy Council upheld the ruling. Many of the courts within the region have been reviewing the matter, a setback that should be clarified shortly, he said.
According to the former prime minister, as some inmates have appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the question now stands as to what steps the government has taken to bring these matters to a conclusion.
With a dozen murders already taking place this year, the capital punishment debate has been pushed back into the spotlight with renewed focus being placed on the 31 inmates languishing on death row at Her Majesty’s Prison in Fox Hill.
Twelve of these condemned men have already appealed to the Privy Council. Ten of those appeals have been dismissed. But these inmates also have the option of filing their appeals with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the local Committee on the Prerogative Committee of Mercy as a last-ditched effort.
Proponents of capital punishment have some heavy hitters in their corner Police Commissioner Paul Farquharson and Deputy Commission John Rolle recently called for the resumption of hangings, while both Prime Minister Perry Christie and Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt have gone on the record in support of the death penalty. Mr. Ingraham yesterday insisted that the government provide the facts to the Bahamian people regarding the government’s stance on capital punishment.
He said Bahamians must know if the new rulings of the Privy Council have “effectively rendered the death penalty in the Bahamas as an ineffective punishment. Are we or are we not likely to have hangings in the near future?
“It is better for the public to know the facts than to have this expectation and suffer this great disappointment when years from mow no one is hanged.”
Mr. Ingraham pointed out steps his government took to ensure that foot-dragging by international organizations like the IACHR would not create additional constitutional challenges.
“My government took the position that the Inter-American Committee could not and would not be permitted to take an inordinate amount of time to hear and determine matters referred to them,” he said.
“We wrote to them and gave them what we considered to be a reasonable period of time in which, if the government did not hear from them, we would act according to the laws of the country. If that remains the position of the government, I wonder where the cases that are now sitting there -having been disposed by the Privy Council – fit into this.”
The former prime minister also used the opportunity to reiterate his views on the death penalty.
“I never supported capital punishment,” Mr. Ingraham said. “I simply permitted it to go on under my government because I did not have the right to impose my personal views on the society against the law”
The last time the Bahamas hanged a condemned man was in the year 2000.
By Macushla Pinder, The Bahama Journal
