Death sentence - committee submits report on alternatives

The special committee to review alternative sentences to the mandatory death penalty has today submitted its report to the government.

Former chief justice Richard Malanjum presented the findings contained in the 128-page report to the de facto law minister Liew Vui Keong (above).

"My office is now studying the contents of the official report as well as the recommendations made by the special committee.

"In the coming weeks, a cabinet paper on the findings and recommendations will be tabled before the cabinet for its deliberation.

"All further actions and decisions in respect to the official report and the recommendations therein will be based on a collective cabinet decision on the matter," Liew said in a statement this evening.

Liew said the special committee held several town hall meetings and public consultations during a four-month period since it was set up on Sept 20 last year.

Among those consulted include families of crime victims, families of prisoners on death row, prisoners on death rows themselves, government agencies, religious groups, civil society as well as government and opposition MPs.

"International experts across the globe, including from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the United Kingdom were also consulted," he said.

Liew thanked the special committee for its efforts in preparing the report.

"The official report is a significant study bound to alter the landscape of the nation’s entire criminal sentencing policy as the government moves to abolish the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia," he said.

Pakatan Harapan, in its manifesto, has promised to do away with the mandatory death penalty.

This does not mean the abolition of the death penalty but instead, judges will no longer have their hands tied where they must mete out the death penalty and has no discretion under laws that provide for the mandatory death penalty.