PENALTY

worked to repeal capital punishment in Lebanon’s Penal Code. His
tenure as Minister of Justice is considered one of the most productive
periods for the judiciary and the promotion of draft laws. After
recognising that abolition of the death penalty in Lebanon was a
contentious issue, he continued working towards the achievement
of a “more humane and more efficient justice system.” 14 In 2008, he
introduced a draft law to abolish the death penalty in Lebanon. Had
it been accepted, capital punishment would have been replaced by
life imprisonment. 15 In 2010 he was awarded the National Medal for
Human Rights in recognition of his draft law to abolish the death
penalty in Lebanon. Mr. Najjar continues to advocate the abolition
of capital punishment in Lebanon. In June 2014, he was part of a
delegation of ICDP commissioners which I led. We held discussions
related to the death penalty with Prime Minister Tammam Salam,
members of parliament, lawyers, diplomats and important members
of civil society. During a speech in Lebanon as an ICDP delegate in
June 2014, he said, “In Lebanon, we are witnessing a tendency to steer
away from the death penalty when we take note [that] the Parliament
has introduced no new legal sanctions constituting expansion of the
death penalty in the recent past. The dependence on death penalty
has ended. For me, the death penalty is premeditated murder; it is not
objective. Its abolition has to be achieved through constant consensus
and placed within the context of Lebanese and regional peace.” 16
Lebanon remains a death-penalty-retentionist country; the last
executions, of three men, were carried out in January 2004. (The
last public executions were carried out in May 1998 and sparked
uproar because the gallows did not work properly.) In July 2001, the
Lebanese parliament voted unanimously leave the application of the
death penalty to the discretion of judges. The Lebanese Constitution
requires the signature of the president, the prime minister and the
minister of justice to carry out an execution. In September 2011, the
Lebanese parliament approved a bill amending law No. 463/2002 on
the implementation of sentences, creating a formal status for those
14 International Commission against the Death Penalty, Annual Review 2010-2012, p. 23.
15 Ibid., p. 21.
16 International Commission against the Death Penalty, “President of ICDP Mr Federico Mayor,
Commissioners Ms Hanne Sophie Greve and Mr Ibrahim Najjar leads ICDP mission to
Lebanon” (Geneva, 16 June 2014), available from www.icomdp.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/18-ICDP-Press-Statement-Lebanon-16-June-2014.pdf.
“sentenced to death without being executed.” Although this amendment
did not abolish the death penalty, it has enhanced the unofficial
position of the Lebanese authorities in favour of a de facto moratorium
on executions. As of June 2014, there were at least 57 prisoners
sentenced to death in Lebanon.
Bill Richardson (Governor, 2002-2010, New Mexico, USA)
signed a death penalty abolition bill into law in March 2009,
making the state of New Mexico the 15th US state to abolish capital
punishment. He was then in his second term as Governor of
New Mexico, re-elected in 2006 with the support of 69 per cent of
voters, representing the largest margin of victory for any governor
in state history. Since the resumption of executions in the United
States in 1977, New Mexico had carried out one execution, in 2001.
A statewide poll in 2008 showed that 64 per cent of New Mexicans
supported replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment
without parole and restitution to victims’ families. In New Mexico’s
case, factors that helped abolition included lobbying against the death
penalty by prominent voices within the Catholic Church and families
of murder victims, legislators citing the high cost of executions,
and a 2008 study by the New Mexico Law Review on the application
of capital punishment between July 1979 and December 2007 that
found that the imposition of the death penalty was influenced by
where or when the crime was committed and the race or ethnicity
of the victim and the defendant. The death penalty abolition bill was
passed with cross-party support by the State Senate (24 to 18) and
House of Representatives (40 to 28) in March 2009. Governor Richardson
then sought the views of citizens and was urged by former US
President Jimmy Carter to support the bill.
Governor Richardson justified his decision to sign the death penalty
abolition bill, which he called the most difficult of his life, by referring
to inmates who had been exonerated after being sentenced to
death: “The sad truth is that the wrong person can still be convicted
in this day and age, and in cases where that conviction carries with it
the ultimate sanction, we must have ultimate confidence, I would say
certitude, that the system is without flaw or prejudice. Unfortunately,
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