One of Papua New Guinea’s oldest political parties, the People’s Progress Party (PPP) has welcomed the Parliament’s decision to do away with death penalty as a punishment for serious crimes.
The PPP National President, Sumasy Singin said death penalty was a draconian and primitive law that has not proven to be a deterrent to serious crimes anywhere in the world.
Mr Singin said PPP has always opposed to death penalty with one of its founding members of the party and former Middle Fly MP, Warren Dutton who vehemently opposed capital punishment in any form.
“In the 21st Century Papua New Guinea cannot be resorting to a most primitive and barbaric act against Christian principles that God is the giver and taker of life,” he said.
As well, Mr Singin said the repealing of death penalty law in PNG is in line with the 1977 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution and desire to restrict the number of offences for which the death penalty might be imposed, with a view to the desirability of abolishing this form of punishment.
A former senior government lawyer and diplomat, Mr Singin said Parliament has done the right thing to repeal the death penalty provision in the criminal code in line with similar actions by many other nations.
On Thursday, January 20 2022, PNG’s Parliament made changes to the criminal code and replaced with life imprisonment for crimes previously that carried death penalty.
With the removal of death penalty it means those otherwise would have received such penalty will serve life sentences with some eligible for parole after serving 30 years.
The amendment to the death penalty provision by Justice Minister, Bryan Kramer received majority support of the MPs present in the Chamber to do away with death penalty.
Speaking in support of the changes for PNG to do away with death penalty, Prime Minister James Marape said death penalty is no effective deterrent to crime. He noted that experiences worldwide has shown that death penalty is not an effective deterrent to solving many of the serious crimes.
All MPs who debated on the amendments spoke against death penalty.
(National President of PPP, Sumasy Singin welcoming the abolition of death penalty in PNG by Parliament last Thursday, January (Jan 20 2021).)