heart of that commitment. One of the reasons for the prohibition of capital punishment is "that allowing the State to kill will cheapen the value of human life and thus [through not doing so] the State will serve in a sense as a role model for individuals in society."[1] Our country needs such role models.
[125]The Attorney General also contended that if even one innocent life should be saved by the execution of perpetrators of vile murders, this would provide sufficient justification for the death penalty.[2] The hypothesis that innocent lives might be saved must be weighed against the values underlying the Constitution, and the ability of the State to serve "as a role model". In the long run more lives may be saved through the inculcation of a rights culture, than through the execution of murderers.
[126]The death sentence has been reserved for the most extreme cases, and the overwhelming majority of convicted murderers are not and, since extenuating circumstances became a relevant factor sixty years ago, have not been sentenced to death in South Africa. I referred earlier to the figures provided by the Attorney General which show that between the amendment of the Criminal Procedure Act in 1990, and January 1995, which is the date of his written argument in the present case, 243 death sentences were imposed, of which 143 were confirmed by the Appellate Division. Yet, according to statistics placed before us by the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General, there were on average approximately 20 000 murders committed, and 9 000 murder cases brought to trial, each year during this period. Would the carrying out of the death sentence on these 143 persons have deterred the other murderers or saved any lives?
[127]It was accepted by the Attorney General that this is a much disputed issue in the literature on the death sentence. He contended that it is common sense that the most feared penalty will provide the greatest deterrent, but accepted that there is no proof that the death sentence is in fact a greater deterrent than life imprisonment for a long period. It is, he said, a proposition that is not capable of proof, because one never knows about those who have been deterred; we know only about those who have not been deterred, and who have committed terrible crimes. This is no doubt true, and the fact that there is no proof that the death sentence is a greater deterrent than imprisonment does not necessarily mean that the requirements of section 33 cannot be met. It is, however, a major obstacle in the way of the Attorney General's argument, for he has to satisfy us that the penalty is reasonable and necessary, and the doubt which exists in regard to the deterrent effect of the sentence must weigh heavily against his argument. "A punishment as extreme and as irrevocable as death cannot be predicated upon speculation as to what the deterrent effect might be…"[3] I should add that this obstacle would not be removed by the implementation of a suggestion in one of the amicus briefs, that section 277(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act should be made more specific, and should identify the extreme categories of murder for which the death sentence would be a permissible punishment.
Prevention
- ↑ Sopinka J (La Forest, Gonthier, Iacobucci and Major JJ, concurring) in Rodriquez v British Columbia (1994) 17 CRR(2d) 193 at 218.
- ↑ This proposition is advanced in greater detail by J Price, (1995) "De Rebus" 89.
- ↑ Wright, CJ., in People v. Anderson, supra note 62, at 897.
