Usually I avoid getting into debates about the dealth penalty, and abortion. Not because I do not have my beliefs, or that I don't have reasons for my belief. Mainly because people who argue for or against fail to do so in a logical or clear manner. Instead, they spout rhetoric and allow extreme emotional depth to cloud rationality.
I read Diana Mahabir-Wyatt's article in the Express of Tuesday May 15th. Normally she provides a good read, writing articles that are sensible and thoughtful. However, in this article she spouts some nonsense I could not believe comes from the mouth (or pen) of an educated woman.
Apparently Mr Manning wants T&T to be classified alongside Saudi Arabia where a man and a woman were publicly stoned to death for committing adultery. That country encourages the death sentence to be carried out by a family member of the victim.
So simply because the Prime Minister wants to implement the death penalty, this means the country would automatically become as Saudi Arabia? Such an asinine remark in itself leads me to think that Mrs M-W can't have much faith in the intelligence or sensibilities of fellow Trinidadians. Trinidad does not have Islamic law, and probably never will. Why? Because there are other groups living in Trinidad who are NOT FOLLOWING ISLAMIC LIFESTYLES! To move to any sort of law system that supports stoning for adultery and death for becoming pregnant outside of marriage (see below) will be to IMPOSE such laws on people who do not believe in such a system.
Or we can stand beside Pakistan where a man who raped his daughter then killed her when she became pregnant as a result, because he said she had dishonoured the family by becoming pregnant when she was not married. He didn't get the death penalty, but two young men who robbed a bank did, although the money was recovered and no one was injured.
Again, how can Pakistan be compared to Trinidad? One wonders how Mrs M-W made this link, what leap of imagination took her to this conclusion?
Obviously the death penalty is not a deterrent.
I can't recall the Constitution saying that any court sentences are meant to be deterrents. I believe they are punishments. You see, we learn in two ways. One is if we do something good and we are rewarded. We would tend to remember, then want to repeat the actions to obtain further rewards.
Secondly, we learn through punishment. If we do wrong and we are punished, we remember the pain that comes from punishment. And we then avoid doing it again for fear of repeating the painful lesson.
So to say that the death penalty or any other court imposed action is a deterrent is actually saying that oranges tastes like mangoes without having tasted a mango to know what it is like. Punishment is simply to remember a lesson, harsh as it is. Laws aren't meant to deter, they are meant to punish, to teach a lesson, hence the process of a trial and appeals etc to confirm that the person is indeed guilty.
So we can argue that the death penalty is indeed a harsh lesson to learn for killing someone. True, but no one who has been hanged ever came back to repeat their actions.
If Trinidad wants to implement a punishment that is already in the books for murder, then by all means pursue the avenue. But don't compare us with anyone else. Validate any position on its own merit, don't compare oranges and mangoes.
