Human rights and death sentence can co-exist

ADUN SPEAKS | First, I would like to clarify I had published statements regarding the abolition of the mandatory death sentence in my personal capacity as an elected assemblyperson.

They were my views and also the opinions of the many people I spoke to. The statements were NOT the views of DAP and I hold no party position whatsoever. I was never instructed by DAP top leaders to write on their behalf either. Some DAP leaders support the total abolition of the death sentence.

Yesterday, Latheefa Koya lashed out at DAP and me because of my support for the announcement by Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department on the abolition of the mandatory death sentence for 11 offences as promised in the Pakatan Harapan GE14 manifesto.

This was totally uncalled for as she should have checked with any Harapan leader, including DAP leaders. She will know easily this was a promise agreed to by all the component parties. That she decided to attack DAP alone and not PKR, Amanah or Bersatu defies logic.

The Harapan manifesto got the seal of approval in GE14 by a majority of the millions of people in Malaysia. We are to honour the manifesto more than anything else and all decisions must be based on what is written inside.

We can only improve on the promises or change them if forced to with the support of the majority of the people. Otherwise, we should wait for the next manifesto to be published and seek the people’s mandate again.

Our job now is to concentrate on fulfilling the many promises made in the manifesto, not the demands of activists.

We have a moratorium on the death sentence at the moment and nobody on death row is to be executed. Even if the death sentence is abolished, these inmates will still be required to serve a minimum 30-year life sentence.

By abolishing the mandatory life sentence, a majority of them, especially the drug mules, will be able to look forward to having their lives spared. Isn’t this a remarkable improvement already? This is supported by most of the people.

On the other hand, there are calls for the death sentence to be the definitive punishment for corruption to prevent more mega-scandals and kleptocracy.

We live in a country and a region where many people, Asians in general, perceive justice for the victims to be more important than human rights for criminals. This fact has been shown by the reality that most Asian countries have not abolished the death sentence, in particular, Singapore and Japan that are two of the richest and most developed nations on earth.

We have to make sure the accused gets a fair trial and the judicial process is robust and beyond abuse. The rights of the accused and the justice for victims of fatal crime is not a zero-sum game; they can co-exist.

Latheefa cannot pick and choose to attack anybody she likes with whatever standards she chooses to adopt. It will be an insult to a lot of the countries around us.

I urge activists to welcome the steps taken by the new government, not criticise them. Many death row inmates will be grateful their lives will be spared.

The government will concentrate on making the lives of the hardworking citizens, who pay taxes and are law-abiding, better, and above all, fulfil the promises in the GE14 manifesto. We can have both human rights and the death sentence in Malaysia.

KO CHUNG SEN is Harapan assemblyperson for Kepayang, Perak.

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