Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes the release on 28 March 2011 of an Amnesty International report entitled Death Sentences and Executions 2010 and that:

(a) over the last 10 years, 31 countries have abolished the death sentence in practice or in law; and

(b) in December 2010:

(i) the United Nations General Assembly adopted its third resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty; and

(ii) 23 countries had carried out executions in 2010 compared to 19 countries in 2009; and

(2) recommits to its bi-partisan condemnation of the death penalty across the world.

I have always opposed the death penalty. It is ineffective as a deterrent and it is ethically wrong. Amnesty International released its latest report, Death Sentences and Executions 2010, on 28 March 2011. Since 1977 Amnesty's work in relation to the universal abolition of the death penalty has expanded. Over 30 years later, from the original 16 countries, the number of countries which have abolished it now 139. That is in no small measure due to the work of Amnesty International.

When the United Nations General Assembly adopted its third resolution on a moratorium on the death penalty in December 2010, there were more countries supporting the resolution than ever before—139 voted for it, 41 voted against it and there were 35 abstentions. It is those countries that voted against the resolution, and those who abstained, that we must continue to lobby, as appropriate, to abolish this inhumane practice.

According to the report at least 23 countries are known to have carried out judicial executions in 2010 and there were at least 527 known executions. While several countries do make their figures known, it is difficult to establish the exact figures as these are regarded as 'state secrets'. At least 2,024 new death sentences were known to have been imposed in 67 countries in 2010. On the figures available to Amnesty there were at least 17,833 people under sentence of death. Of those countries which retain the death penalty, the explanation provided is that it is only used for the most serious of crimes. Of course, that is a matter of definition based on the culture and history of those countries. For example, we are all aware that some countries impose the death sentence for drug offences which in other countries carry a sentence of imprisonment. In some cases the imposition of the death penalty is mandatory for such offences. Other countries impose the death sentence for sexual relations between consenting adults, homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery and prostitution. Other countries use this penalty to silence dissent and political opposition.

Of course, another aspect of this barbaric practice is the lack of due process in the judicial proceedings leading to the imposition of the death penalty in some countries. The Amnesty report provides examples of little or no fairness in the courts prior to sentence, including confessions extracted under torture. There is a clear prohibition in international law on the use of the death penalty against juveniles, yet Amnesty has documented cases in which people under 18 years of age have been sentenced to death. I particularly noticed in the report, in Annex II, the list of abolitionist and retentionist countries as at 31 December 2010. Australia is, of course, amongst the two-thirds of the world that has abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. It is very satisfactory that it was the Labor government which introduced the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Torture Prohibition and Death Penalty Abolition) Bill, which effectively extends the prohibition of the death penalty in Australia to every state and territory and ensures that it cannot be reintroduced. It is a matter of great pride that this legislation was supported by all parties of the parliament. I call on the House to recommit to the bipartisan condemnation of the death penalty and ask that we all continue to work to ensure its abolition across the world.

It is worth reiterating past experiences in England to elaborate the point that we are making here this evening. We can all remember the cases of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven in England. Those people were convicted in each of the cases and, if the death penalty had been in operation in the United Kingdom at that time, would have been subject to the death penalty. It took many years of agitation on behalf of their supporters, in terms of inquiries that took place, to eventually establish the fact that in a number of cases police had lied and those lies had led to the conviction of people. Their convictions were found to be unsafe and unsatisfactory. If the death penalty had been in existence, many of those people would have been executed, not released many years later. For various reasons, mistakes are made. In one of those cases there was a misdiagnosis in relation to the use of soap and the use of powder to do with bombs. (Time expired)

See this speech in context