Anything that does not yield political advantage to us as individuals or to our favoured political party or leader is not important enough to warrant our serious attention.
Thus the issue of capital punishment – an issue that you would expect any civilized society to give its utmost attention because it involves taking human life – has been pushed to the back burner. Political a parties, journalists and NGOs all focus on ‘more important matters’ such as the length of presidential tenure, security reforms or how power should be handed over to the winner of an election.
The debate is only about politics. It is about how to ensure the new constitution can make it easier for one’s preferred politician or party to grab all the power. The debate is not about how to ensure Zimbabwe is better governed and that there is respect for human rights, the rule of law and human life.
Yet a new constitution that gets all the power and political questions right would still render us a morally and ethically bankrupt, should that document sanction killing in the form of capital punishment.
This is why all progressive Zimbabweans must support last week’s calls by lawyers and religious leaders for the proposed new constitution to abolish the death penalty. Murder – that’s what capital punishment ultimately is – has no place in the statute books of a civilized society.
In the same vein, news that Cabinet is delaying ordering the execution of 55 convicted murderers in anticipation that the new constitution might abolish capital punishment is a welcome step in the right direction.
To call for the lives of murders to be spared is by no means to ignore the gravity of the crimes they committed. It is also not to belittle the pain suffered by their victims.
The call for them to be spared the noose and have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment is driven by a realisation that society cannot kill these criminals without reducing itself to their abhorrent levels.
It is also driven by a realisation that human justice is not infallible. Judges are human beings who are known to make mistakes that sometimes have led to the conviction of innocent people.
Capital punishment is too drastic and irreversible. Fallible human beings should not have power to impose it on one another. Deciding who lives or dies is and should remain the province of God alone.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga