Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Emerging African Jurisprudence Suggesting the Desirability of the Abolition of Capital Punishment

Emerging African Jurisprudence Suggesting the Desirability of the Abolition of Capital Punishment C. ANYANGWE I. INTRODUCTION The death penalty has for thousands of years been the most dreaded1 and probably the most misused2 form of punishment ever. It continues to raise moral and religious issues as well as issues that impinge on law enforcement and the administration of criminal justice. It is thus not only a subject of continuing controversy but also one of continuing research interest. The right to life is the primary right that conditions all others and thus has supreme value because without life, all human rights are superfluous. Unfortunately, although several international treaties outlaw capital punishment neither the International Bill of Rights nor the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights explicitly does so. However, the Bill narrowly circumscribes the scope of capital offences and stringently regulates the application of the death penalty thereby strongly suggesting that abolition of that penalty is desirable. After some initial hesitation, there is now developing jurisprudence by the African Commission and a number of African Municipal Courts strongly suggesting that abolition of that penalty is desirable. While this paper briefly recalls the pros and cons of the death penalty, its focus is on the emerging abolitionist jurisprudence in Africa. The http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png African Journal of International and Comparative Law Edinburgh University Press

Emerging African Jurisprudence Suggesting the Desirability of the Abolition of Capital Punishment

Download PDF
28 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/edinburgh-university-press/emerging-african-jurisprudence-suggesting-the-desirability-of-the-RDWdVCpYZZ
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press 2015
Subject
Articles; African Studies
ISSN
0954-8890
eISSN
1755-1609
DOI
10.3366/ajicl.2015.0108
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

C. ANYANGWE I. INTRODUCTION The death penalty has for thousands of years been the most dreaded1 and probably the most misused2 form of punishment ever. It continues to raise moral and religious issues as well as issues that impinge on law enforcement and the administration of criminal justice. It is thus not only a subject of continuing controversy but also one of continuing research interest. The right to life is the primary right that conditions all others and thus has supreme value because without life, all human rights are superfluous. Unfortunately, although several international treaties outlaw capital punishment neither the International Bill of Rights nor the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights explicitly does so. However, the Bill narrowly circumscribes the scope of capital offences and stringently regulates the application of the death penalty thereby strongly suggesting that abolition of that penalty is desirable. After some initial hesitation, there is now developing jurisprudence by the African Commission and a number of African Municipal Courts strongly suggesting that abolition of that penalty is desirable. While this paper briefly recalls the pros and cons of the death penalty, its focus is on the emerging abolitionist jurisprudence in Africa. The

Journal

African Journal of International and Comparative Law – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Feb 1, 2015

There are no references for this article.