Proposed Constitution Article

A broad coalition of Thai human rights organizations proposes the following formulation of the right to life for inclusion in the Thai Constitution now being written.

สิทธิในชีวิต
หลักการ
การมีชีวิตเป็นสิทธิขั้นพื้นของมนุษย์ทุกคน การประกันสิทธิที่จะมีชีวิตโดยการรับรองไว้ในรัฐธรรมนูญ จึงเป็นสิ่งสำคัญที่สุด แต่รัฐธรรมนูญ 2540 มีบทบัญญัติที่เสมือนการยอมรับการทำลายชีวิตมนุษย์ และสิทธิที่จะได้รับการปกป้องคุ้มครองจากการกระทำทารุณยังไม่ครอบคลุมเพียงพอ จึงสมควรรับรองสิทธิในชีวิตให้สอดคล้องกับหลักสิทธิมนุษยชน
ข้อเสนอ
มาตรา...บุคคลมีสิทธิและเสรีภาพในชีวิตและร่างกาย และจะต้องไม่ถูกทำให้เสียชีวิตตามอำเภอใจ หรือการถูกบังคับให้หายตัวไปโดยไม่สมัครใจ
การทรมาน ทารุณกรรม หรือการปฏิบัติ หรือการลงโทษด้วยวิธีที่โหดร้าย ไร้มนุษยธรรม หรือย่ำยีศักดิ์ศรี จะกระทำมิได้

Proposed Article: Every person has the right to life and bodily integrity. A person may not be deprived of life by a deliberate act nor be forcefully abducted unwillingly.
A person may not be tortured or treated inhumanely or submitted to cruel punishment or tyrannically deprived of freedom.

New Constitution

As Thailand writes a new constitution the examples of the 47 states who reject the death penalty may be useful

47 Countries throughout the world have repudiated the death penalty in their constitutions. The following table records the wordings of these guarantees of the right to life.

Country	Words of Constitution	Article
1. Andorra	The penalty of death is prohibited	8.3
2. Angola	1. The State respects and protects human life 2. The penalty of death is prohibited	22
3. Austria	The penalty of death is abolished	85
4. Belgium	The death penalty is abolished, it cannot be brought back into force	18
5. Bosnia-Herzegovina	All persons within the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall enjoy the human rights and fundamental freedoms referred to in paragraph 2 above; these include: (a) The right to life	Paragraph 3
6. Cambodia	Every individual has the right to life, to liberty, and to personal security. The penalty of death should not exist	32
7. Cape Verde	No individual may be subject to torture, nor to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. The death penalty may not be applied in any case.	26-2
8. Colombia	The right to life is inviolable. The death penalty does not exist	11
9. Costa Rica	The right to life is inviolable	21
10. Cote d’Ivoire	Any sanction leading to the deprivation of human life is forbidden	2
11. Croatia	Every human being has the right to life. The death penalty does not exist in the Republic of Croatia	21
12. Czech Republic	The death penalty does not exist	6.3
13. Dominican Republic	Neither the death penalty, nor torture or any other penalty or repressive procedure or punishment resulting in loss of, or damage to, the physical integrity or health of an individual, may be established	8.1
14. Ecuador	The State recognises and guarantees inviolability of life to all citizens. The death penalty does not exist	23
15. Finland	Every individual has the right to life, to individual liberty, to physical integrity and to security. No individual may be condemned to death, to torture, or to other degrading treatment	6
16. France	No one may be condemned to the penalty of death	66-1
17. Germany	The penalty of death is abolished	102
18. Guinea-Bissau	In no case may the penalty of death exist in the Republic of Guinea Bissau	36-1
19. Haiti	The penalty of death is abolished for every matter	20
20. Honduras	The penalty of death is prohibited	66
21. Iceland	The penalty of death may in no case be established by law	69
22. Ireland	The Parliament shall not enact any law providing for the imposition of the death penalty	15.5.2
23. Luxembourg	The death penalty may not be established	18
24. Macedonia	Human life is inviolable. The death penalty may not be applied in any case in the Republic of Macedonia	10
25. Marshall Islands	In virtue of the legislation of the Marshall Islands, no crime is punishable by penalty of death	6-1
26. Micronesia	Penalty of death is forbidden	IV-9
27. Monaco	The penalty of death is abolished	20
28. Mozambique	1. All citizens have the right to life and that their physical integrity be respected. They may not be subjected to torture, nor to cruel or inhuman treatment. 2. The penalty of death does not exist in the Republic of Mozambique	6
29. Namibia	The right to life will be respected and protected. No law may impose the death penalty as a judicial punishment.. No tribunal or court may issue a death penalty. No execution may take place in Namibia	6
30. Nepal	No law can envisage the death penalty	12-1
31. Netherlands	The death penalty sentence may not be pronounced	114
32. Nicaragua	The right to life is inviolable and inherent in the human person. The penalty of death does not exist in Nicaragua	23
33. Panama	The penalty of death does not exist	30
34. Paraguay	The penalty of death is abolished	4
35. Portugal	(1) Human life is inviolable (2) The death penalty is applicable in no case	24
36. Romania	The penalty of death is prohibited	22-3
37. Sao Tome and Principe	1. Human life is inviolable 2. The death penalty may not be applied in any case
38. Seychelles	2. No law allows a tribunal to pronounce a sentence of capital punishment	15
39. Slovak Republic	3. The penalty of death is inadmissable	15
40. Slovenia	Human life is inviolable. The death penalty does not exist in Slovenia	17
41. South Africa	Everyone has the right to life	2.11
42. Sweden	Sentence of death may not be pronounced	4
43. Switzerland	Every person has the right to live. The death penalty is prohibited	10.1
44. Timor-Leste	There shall be no death penalty in the Democratic Republic of East Timor	29.3
45. Ukraine	Every person has the inalienable right to life. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of life. The duty of the State is to protect human life.	27
46. Uruguay	Penalty of death may not be applied in any case	26
47. Venezuela	The right to life is inviolable. No law may establish the penalty of death, and no authority may inflict it	58

Notes:

Abolitionist and retentionist countries
Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
Amnesty International's latest information shows that:

• 89 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes;
• 10 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes;
• 29 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice: they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions,

making a total of 128 countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

• 69 other countries and territories retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.

Morocco - First Arab Country Preparing to Abolish Death Penalty

At the Third World Congress against the Death Penalty in Paris last February, the head of the Morocco's state-appointed Consultative Committee on Human Rights, Ben Zekri, confirmed there was a general consensus among members of parliament to end capital punishment. The Moroccan press has speculated that a parliamentary vote will be taken on the issue in the current parliamentary session which ends in June. A bill to abolish the death penalty had already been drawn up and put before the government. The king had also set up a special legal commission which was working on the task of removing capital punishment from the country's legal code.

Since 1993 Morocco has operated a moratorium on the death penalty -- one of some 20 African countries which have not carried out executions for more than 10 years.

Opponents of the death penalty world-wide, hope that Morocco's removal of the death penalty from its statute books will set an example to North African and Middle Eastern states. None of the 22 states in the region have yet abolished the death penalty. Saudi Arabia and Iran execute more than a hundred every year.

Morocco's steady progress along the road to abolition of the death penalty was given a major boost with the final report of the Equity and Reconciliation Committee in 2005. This recommended the abolition of the death penalty as a measure for strengthening the judicial and political reforms carried out since king Mohammed VI's accession to the throne in 1999.

The committee, headed by Driss Benzekri, a close advisor to the king, investigated grave violations of human rights committed between the granting of independence and 1999. It organised public hearings which were broadcast on national television, something unheard of in the Arab world.

Moroccan television has also played a major role in the public debate on the death penalty. Last October the national coalition against the death penalty organised a debate on capital punishment at the headquarters of the lawyer's club in the Moroccan capital, Rabat. This was televised nationally.

Later a documentary on the death penalty was also broadcast on television. Nothing like this had ever been produced and shown in an Arab country, one delegate to the recent Paris World Congress against the Death Penalty said. The documentary appears to have convinced some people to switch from supporting the death penalty to becoming abolitionists.

Not all Morocco's predominantly Muslim population have been won over by the arguments of the abolitionists. Many still find justification for capital punishment in the Koran and sacred texts. Some members of Morocco's legal profession would also not like any change in the law.

"The abolitionists have the wrong approach to the right to life," Mohamed Chemssy, a lawyer, told IPS. "This right cannot be used to defend someone who has deprived another of precisely this right. Those who support abolition cannot only consider the criminal. They must also consider the families of the victims." He added: "The death penalty cannot be tied to democracy, dictatorship, Islam or to any other religion. It is tied to justice. We do not need to abolish the death penalty. We need to guarantee fair triails for all and an independent judiciary that would give fair sentences no matter what the punishment," he said.

But Ahmed Kouza, a doctor and Amnesty International activist, takes an opposite view:
"Abolition would improve the image of this country and help reinforce respect for human rights where the right to life comes first of all," he told IPS. "Death penalty sentences and executions have never stopped crime anywhere." Judicial mistakes could never be ruled out. The emphasis should be on reforming criminals and returning them to society. "As Muslims, we believe that only God gives life and death," he added.

3rd World Congress against Death Penalty

Final declaration of the 3rd World Congress against the Death Penalty

Paris, 1-3 February 2007

Assembled in Paris from 1 to 3 February 2007, on the initiative of Ensemble contre la peine de mort (Together against the Death Penalty), supported by the World Coalition against the Death Penalty,

We, citizens and representatives of civil society and public authorities, meeting in even greater number than at the first two World Congresses against the Death Penalty in Strasbourg in 2001 and Montreal in 2004, adopt this Declaration at the conclusion of discussions involving some 30 debates as well as testimonies, analyses and exchanges of experiences and strategies.

We welcome the fact that the death penalty is receding in the world and that since the Montreal Congress Greece, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Mexico, the Philippines and Senegal have abolished capital punishment, while no country has re-introduced it. We regret that, during the same period, some countries have resumed executions after prolonged moratoria, such as Bahrain in 2006, and that the death penalty is still applied on a large scale in a number of countries including China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Vietnam. We strongly condemn the initiatives in some abolitionist countries to reintroduce the death penalty and demand in particular that the Peruvian authorities renounce this effort.

We recognise that the process of abolition must be accompanied by a better consideration of the needs of victims and by an in-depth reflection on penal policy and prison systems, in the framework of an equitable and restorative justice.

We demand with one voice the end throughout the world of justice that kills. No authority has the right to strike out a person’s life. We recall that the death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, that it is contrary to human rights, that it has no utility in the fight against crime, and that it always represents a failure of justice.

The 3rd World Congress against the Death Penalty adopts the following recommendations:

1. We call on all countries to abolish the death penalty and to ratify international and regional abolitionist treaties, especially the Second Optional Protocol to the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

2. Following on from the statement at the UN General Assembly in December 2006, which was supported by an unprecedented number of countries from around the world, we solemnly appeal to all states of the world to stop all executions immediately.

Recognizing the great value that a successful resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly would have for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide, we invite the member states of the United Nations to take all necessary steps to ensure the adoption by the General Assembly of a resolution
- calling for an immediate and universal moratorium on death sentences and executions and the commutation of existing death sentences, with a view to the universal abolition of the death penalty;
- recalling that the death penalty violates human rights and fundamental freedoms; and
- encouraging the UN, its member states, and other relevant international, regional and sub-regional organisations to support the implementation of this moratorium, including through mobilizing resources and expertise.

We call on the citizens of the world to sign the petition, launched by the Sant’Egidio Community and supported by the World Coalition against Death Penalty, which has already attracted over five million signatures, in favour of a worldwide moratorium on executions.

3. We welcome the presence in Paris of many abolitionists from North Africa and the Middle East and their efforts to create national, sub-regional and regional coalitions. We hail the initiatives taken in Morocco, Lebanon and Jordan towards abolition and call on the countries of the region to abolish the death penalty.

4. Welcoming the presence in Paris of Chinese abolitionists, we call on the Chinese government, in the prospect of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and the Shanghai Universal Exposition in 2010, to establish an immediate moratorium on executions with the objective of progressively abolishing the death penalty, and in particular to remove non-violent offences, including economic and drug offences, from the scope of capital punishment.

As, moreover, the Chinese Supreme Court from 1 January 2007 is to review all death sentences imposed by courts of first instance, we call on the Chinese authorities to remove the secrecy surrounding the administration of the death penalty.

5. We welcome the fact that, since the Strasbourg Congress in 2001, the world abolitionist movement has structured itself, with full respect for the diversity of its members, around the World Coalition against the Death Penalty, which was created in 2002 and now includes over 50 organisations.

We call on organisations and institutions that share the objective of abolition – non-governmental organisations, bar associations, trade unions and local governments - to join the World Coalition.

We call on abolitionists of the whole world to take part each year in the World Day against the Death Penalty, which will focus in 2007 on China in the Prospect of the Olympic Games and in 2008 on Teaching Abolition. We call on all regional and international organisations, and the European Union in particular, to adopt 10 October as an official day in favour of universal abolition.

We call on the cities of the world to take part in Cities for Life on 30 November each year.

Finally, we call on members of parliament of the whole world, whose powers include that of voting for abolition, to sign this Declaration.

Paris, 3 February 2007

Abolition in French Constitution

On 3rd January President Jacques Chirac of France vowed to forbid the death penalty absolutely and in all circumstances. Now approaching the end of his presidency he is keeping his promise. A change in the French Constitution is being proposed to the Council of State in January, in the words: NO ONE CAN BE CONDEMNED TO DEATH

France already abolished the death penalty 25 years ago, now it does so irreversibly. In the words of a spokesperson of Amnesty International France; "In enacting a constitutional prohibition on the death penalty, France is sending a strong message to all governments maintaining this cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment".

However, France could make a further step by acceding to the Second Optional Protocol of the Covenant on Social and Political Rights which would confirm its commitment to the community of nations.

South Africa, Ireland, and Germany already prohibit the death penalty in their Constitutions AND have signed the Second Protocol.

Thailand is at present drafting a new Constitution . . . . . . . .

Black Day for Japan and for the World

On Christmas Day 2006 Japan hanged four men. While Christmas Day is considered world wide as a day of peace,Japan wished to show its people and the world that the death penalty remains in force in Japan. The last previous execution took place a few days before the appointment as Justice Minister of Seikei Sugiura in 2005 who, following his Buddhist beliefs, refused to sign death warrants for executions (see posting below). As a result Japan has not had an execution for a period of fifteen months.

When the term of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi ended, Seikei Sugiura also stood down to be replaced by a Minister in favour of the death penalty. Japan is the only major industrialised country besides the United States maintaining Capital Punishment. Executions are carried out without the knowledge of relatives of the condemned, and in unknown locations. The condemned prisoners themselves are informed at the last moment. These practices are against United Nations declared norms for the humane treatment of persons condemned to death.

The Christmas Day executions are particularly noxious as two of those executed are aged 77 and 75 years old. The other two are 64 and 44 years old.

New Death Penalty Lesson for Thailand

In his autobiography “The Last Executioner” Chavoret Jaruboon describes steps leading to Thailand’s adoption of execution by lethal injection: “Some prisons in America started using lethal injection back in 1977. Bang Kwang wanted to move with the times. Our forward-thinking chief sent researchers over to America to study the process of injecting a criminal with chemicals”

The time has come when researchers should return to study the suspension of executions by lethal injection in the US as it is increasingly realised that lethal injection causes unacceptable suffering. The latest in a series of reactions came on Friday 15^th December when Judge Jeremy Fogel in California ruled that executions by lethal injection as practiced in California do not conform to the US Constitution which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.

Lethal injection involves the introduction of three chemicals into the veins of the condemned prisoner. The first is a sedative inducing unconsciousness, the second paralyses the muscles and the third causes the heart to stop. If the sedative does not act correctly the two following chemicals cause extreme pain. Several other US states are encountering the same difficulty. On Wednesday last a condemned person being executed in Florida took 34 minutes to die. The governor of Florida, Jeb Bush has ordered a suspension of executions and the creation of a commission of inquiry on the process.

Executions in California have been suspended since February last.

In fact there is no solution to the problems of execution. The proposal that a medical doctor participate in executions to confirm that the sedative has succeeded is rejected by the medical profession.

The medical profession in Thailand has long since issued a statement that doctors or nurses are unwilling to participate in executions (see posting below, Statement of Thai Medical Personnel).

The Union for Civil Liberties proposes that Thailand delay no longer in joining the majority of the world’s countries in abandoning forever the barbaric practice of the death penalty. The writing of a new constitution is an opportune time to take this momentous step in protecting the right to life in Thailand.

Murder on Koh Samui, death sentence commuted

Two Thai fishermen convicted of raping and murdering, Katherine Horton, a 21-year-old British student on holiday in Thailand, on New Year's Day have had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment, their lawyer said today, 25th November.

Bualoy Kothisit, 23, and Wichai Sonkhaoyai, 24, were sentenced to death after a speedy trial in January but won a reprieve this month after an appeal. The trial was strongly criticised after Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra, Prime Minister at the time, called for the harshest punishment. The mother of the victim rejected the death penalty saying that such would also be the wish of her daughter.

"The court commuted their death sentences on the ground that they had voluntarily confessed their crime,'' lawyer Prompatchara Namuang said, adding that prosecutors could challenge the court's decision and bring the case to the Supreme Court by December 7.

The Last Executioner

The Last Executioner Memoirs of Thailand's Last Prison Executioner by Chavoret Jaruboon

This is a distasteful book. It is a book of no literary merit, little imagination, and little of human feeling. But it tells the story in plain, unadorned language of the most distasteful job on this earth, that of a public executioner. It is an unacceptable job, no one should be called on to carry out judicial murder and made to believe that it is their duty to do so. The task of execution highlights the whole repugnance of the death penalty and the gradual realisation of this is leading to its ultimate abolition.
Chavoret Jaruboon was an ordinary young man who sought the prison service as a stable employment. He was assigned to Bang Kwang, the high security prison in Bangkok where male prisoners condemned to death are detained and where executions are carried out. Others would have kept well away from the death chamber and its rituals but Chavoret wandered in when the machine gun was being serviced and was instructed in its operation by one of the executioners. He must well have realised where his interest would lead. He was recommended to join the team of executioners and progressed through the various levels of responsibility until after ten years he became executioner.
Chavoret's motivation for taking the steps which led to his position are never clearly stated. He obviously has the careful technical ability required to operate a weapon that can give problems, an ability which would not otherwise lead to promotion in the prison service. He is a meticulous person with great control of his feelings and an unquestioning respect for authority, the qualities which certainly led to his selection as executioner. He does not glory in the comradeship of the prison staff but enjoys the regard of his superiors, the chance to perform before the highest authorities, and to make an impression. The 2000 baht fee earned for an execution helps towards the education of his children.
His mental rationalization of his function is a simple one. There are people who are pure evil, "I believe that there are truly bad people who can never be cured of their desire to do depraved things... I believe this type of person deserves to die". Deliberately, he refuses to know the story of the criminals to be executed until after their death lest any personal feeling might affect his efficiency. His duty is to carry out the execution efficiently. Regulations must be complied with but for the rest there must be no delay or mishap which would prolong the agony of prisoner or other participant. Early in the book he repeats his simple belief that the death sentence is justified, and justifies his participation in carrying it out.
It is only at the end of the book that he admits that "killing criminals troubled and depressed me". He has come a long way, "I have come to believe that severe punishment does nothing to solve the problem of crime but it should function as an extreme warning" without seeing the contradiction in this sentence. He reflects further "I believe in karma, which can be bad or good depending on the individual. I never got any pleasure out of shooting people, or out of performing any other role in the persecution process. It was my job". Buddhism gives him the excuse "the convicts on death row are swamped in bad karma and the executioner is doing them a favour by sending them on to their next incarnation for the chance to redeem themselves". It is to his credit that this opinion is quoted from Buddhist monks and he does not adopt it as his own.
Executing 55 men and women in a working life is an abomination. The memoirs of Chavoret Jaruboon are a sad and distasteful story. In the end he cannot justify his choice in life because there is no justification. The value of his story is surely to instruct those who form the chain of command in the justice system that their adherence to capital punishment is also their karma as much as if they pulled the trigger of the machine gun. And so for all of us who acquiesce to this perversity of justice without declaiming 'Not in my name'
'The End of the Death Penalty' refers like the title of the book 'The Last Executioner' to the end of the death penalty by machine gun. Since 2003 Thailand has replaced the machine gun by lethal injection. There are now three executioners where one sufficed before, and the process is no less horrible.
'The End of the Death Penaly' looks forward in hope to the day when this awful practice will truly end.
'The Last Executioner' is available in Asia Book Store