Press Statement
The use of the death penalty in Ghana violates human rights. It is imposed in breach of protections and restrictions set out in international law and standards, such as the mandatory punishment for certain offences. This has resulted, for example, in women who were subjected to gender-based violence at the hands of the murder victim not being able to present their experience and any other mitigating factors at sentencing; and many people not receiving effective legal representation or any representation at all. The majority have not been able to exercise their right to appeal.
The death penalty violates the right to life. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) recognises each person’s right to life. Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples´ Rights (ACHPR) states that “human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the physical and moral integrity of his person.” This view is reinforced by the existence of international and regional treaties providing for the abolition of the death penalty, notably the second optional protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1989.
The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman death. The UDHR categorically states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” All forms of execution are inhuman. No government can guarantee a dignified and painless death to condemned prisoners, who also suffer psychological pain in the period between their sentence and execution.
The death penalty has no dissuasive effect. No scientific study has proved that the death penalty has a more dissuasive effect on crime than other punishments
The death penalty is premeditated murder, demeans the state and makes society more violent. By executing a person, the state commits a murder and shows the same readiness to use physical violence against its victim as the criminal. Moreover, studies have shown that the murder rate increases immediately after executions. Researchers have suggested that this increase is similar to that caused by other violent public events, such as massacres and assassinations.
The death penalty is discriminatory in its application. Throughout the world, the death penalty is disproportionately used against disadvantaged people. Some condemned prisoners from the most impoverished social classes would not have been sentenced to death if they were from wealthier sectors of society. In these cases, either the accused are less able to find their way through the maze of the judicial system (because of a lack of knowledge, confidence or financial means).
Defenders of the death penalty consider that anyone sentenced to death is unable to mend their ways and could re-offend at any time if they are released. However, there are many examples of offenders who have been reintegrated and who have not re-offended. Amnesty International believes that the way to prevent re-offending is to review procedures for conditional release and the psychological monitoring of prisoners during detention, and under no circumstances to increase the number of executions. In addition, the death penalty removes any possibility for the condemned person to repent.
Amnesty International Ghana observes that the death penalty denies the fallibility of human institutions. The risk of executing innocent people remains indissolubly linked to the use of the death penalty. Since 1973, 182 people condemned to death in the United States have been released after proof of their innocence has been established. Some of them have only just escaped execution, after having passed years on death row. These repeated judicial errors have been especially due to irregularities committed by the prosecution or police officers, recourse to doubtful evidence, material information or confessions, or the incompetence of defence lawyers. Other prisoners have been sent to their deaths when serious doubts existed about their guilt.
The death penalty is collective punishment. This punishment affects all the family, friends and those sympathising with the condemned person. The close relatives of an executed prisoner, who generally do not have anything to do with the crime, could feel, as a result of the death penalty, the same dreadful sense of loss as the victim’s parents felt at the death of their loved one.
The death penalty goes against the religious and humanist values that are common to all humanity. Human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent. They are based on many traditions that can be found in all civilisations. All religions advocate clemency, compassion and forgiveness and it is on these values that Amnesty International bases its opposition to the death penalty.
This year marks the 19th World Day Against the Death Penalty and we are calling on the Honorable Minister of Justice and Attorney General and the Ghanaian authorities to commute the death sentences of all death row prisoners to terms of imprisonment and ensure that all these cases are reviewed to identify any potential miscarriages of justice.
We also call on the Hon. Speaker of Parliament and all members of Parliament to support a private member bill, initiated in Parliament in June 2021, by Hon. Francis Xavier Sosu, to remove the death penalty from the Criminal and Other Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29). The proposal seeks to abolish the death penalty for most capital offences under national legislation. This is a unique opportunity for Ghana to make significant steps towards the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes as was recently demonstrated in Sierra Leone where parliament unanimously voted in favour of abolition in July 2021.
