Speaking to FMT, he said he would like to see politicians in power, as well as the media, take the lead in encouraging such discussions.
Recently, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong said the Cabinet had agreed to propose abolishing the death penalty for 32 offences, including murder. Eight pieces of legislation will have to be amended and the government is expected to table a bill for the purpose at the next Dewan Rakyat sitting.
Liew’s announcement prompted vigorous discussions among social media users and many have expressed opposition to the proposal.
Jayasooria said the negative reactions were to be expected because the public had yet to get used to a strong government commitment to human rights. He said those supporting the death penalty would change their minds if they became victims of human rights abuses.
He noted that it had become a global human rights norm to abolish capital punishment and he urged the government to persist in “doing the right thing”.
“Political leaders must have the courage to lead and explain to the public why the government wants to abolish the death penalty,” he said.
“If one innocent person gets sentenced to death, that would already be too much. In some cases, people are sentenced to death for possession of firearms or drugs, but the items may have been planted on them. Sometimes, they just happen to be in a room where the items are kept when the authorities raid the place.”
Criminologist Geshina Ayu Mat Saat of Universiti Sains Malaysia said the government, if it was intent on abolishing the death penalty, must ensure that prison resources were sufficient to manage violent criminals during their incarceration.
She said these would include human resources, infrastructure and provisions for institutional rehabilitation and pre-release risk assessments.
“Secondly, the government and other stakeholders in support of abolition need to guarantee public safety from current and future violent criminals,” she added.
She warned of the possibility of crime prevention becoming more difficult, saying countries which had abolished capital punishment were experiencing high rates of crime and overcrowding in their prisons.
She said people wanting the death penalty to be maintained probably believed that lighter punishments would not adequately reflect the degree of violence perpetrated or the severity of the harm to their victims.
“Also, since violent offenders violate the rights of their victims to live peacefully and safely, some see it as unfair to allow them to continue to live after taking their victims’ lives or limbs and causing trauma to their loved ones.”
She also said some would question the justice of allowing offenders to eventually rejoin society and possibly repeat their crimes.