Capital punishment on the wane in Africa

YAOUNDÈ, Cameroon – Sierra Leone has become the latest country to abolish the death penalty, becoming the 23^rd African nation to repeal capital punishment.

However, the death penalty is still being used in fifteen countries on the continent, and is technically on the books in several others.

In Cameroon, four people were sentenced to death in September for their involvement in the murder of seven children in a school in the country’s troubled South West Region.

FIACAT – The International Federation of ACATs (Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture) –said the sentence in this case was especially egregious, since it was “mainly political and clearly suffered from a lack of proof and violated the rules of a fair trial.”

“The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment that never proved to be efficient in the objectives it pursues and our commitment to its universal abolishment makes us shocked each time it is used,” said Corentin Mançois, FIACAT’s Death Penalty Program Officer.

He told Crux significant progress has been made in the fight against the death penalty in Africa.

Following are excerpts of that interview.

Crux: In September, Cameroon sentenced four people to death for their roles in a shooting attack on a school last year that killed seven children and wounded 12 others. What was your reaction to that sentencing?

Mançois: Members of both ACAT Cameroon and the FIACAT strongly condemned this sentencing. Based on the widened scope of application of the death penalty made possible by the 2014 law in the fight against terrorism. The trial did not concern Boko Haram – specifically aimed at by the 2014 law – but individuals involved in the separatist conflict affecting Cameroon. Behind the argument of fighting terrorism, the trial was mainly political and clearly suffered from a lack of proof and violated the rules of a fair trial.

The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment that never proved to be efficient in the objectives it pursues and our commitment to its universal abolishment make us shocked each time it is used.

In 2014, Cameroon upheld the death penalty especially for terrorism-related offenses. Do you see this as a reversal in the fight against the death penalty?

While it observes a moratorium on the carrying out of actual executions, Cameroon experienced a real setback on December 23, 2014, with a law widening the scope of application for death penalty and giving military courts more power to pronounced it, all of this motivated by the fear Boko Haram was arousing at the moment. Indeed, it is a reversal as it seems inadequate to fight a strategy – terrorism – with judiciary tools that has consistently proved not to be dissuasive. Moreover, the international law formally prohibits the judging of civilians by military courts.

Cameroon went in the opposite direction it was supposed to go after observing such a long moratorium and the fight against terrorism, easily understood by the public opinion, constitutes a pretext to tighten the grip of its leader Paul Biya, who has been in power for almost 40 years, and face separatist movements in English-speaking regions. It proves how the use of a death penalty is nowadays entirely political and benefits to a handful of ruling people while affecting many citizens in an inhumane and cruel way.

The argument for the death penalty in Africa has been that if someone is guilty of killing, then the person should also be killed, and that this could be a dissuasive punishment. How do you counter these arguments?

Actually, these are two separate arguments that are consistently used by retentionists states still using the death penalty.

The first one roots in the ancient law of retaliation and is highly problematic for two reasons: In a State of law, no public authority should have the right to decide who deserves to live or not; even in countries where the justice is the most fair and impartial, statistics show that judiciary mistakes do happen and the sole idea of executing an innocent should be convincing enough to abolish this penalty.

The second argument has constantly been contradicted by statistics : criminal and delinquent acts never skyrocketed after a country decided to abolish the death penalty, hence denying the idea it would be dissuasive; to quote Robert Badinter, the main artisan of its abolition in France: “When criminals decide to act as such, they do not do so carrying the penal code.” Few people sentenced to death knew what were the risks they faced.

How much progress has been made in Africa in the fight against the death penalty?

The last years saw tremendous progress made on a continent which is often seen as the next abolitionist one. FIACAT began its project on death penalty in sub-Saharan Africa six years ago, in the meantime six countries – Madagascar, Congo Brazzaville, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Sierra Leone – abolished it. Today, on the 55 African union members, 23 states removed the death penalty from its judiciary system, 17 are observing a moratorium and 15 – less than a third – still use it.

Every two years since 2007, a vote takes place in the United Nations General Assembly to know whether a universal moratorium on death penalty should be observed. It constitutes an interesting tool to monitor the progress made by the abolitionist ideas worldwide, especially in Africa because while in 2007 only 17 states voted in favour of the moratorium – and 12 voted against – there were 28 to do so – the number of opposed states shrunk to 6 – in the last vote held in 2020. It is notable that Cameroon always abstained during each vote. All these elements made us confident in the fact the fight against the death penalty is more than ever bearing its fruits.

You indicated above that about a third of African countries still use the death penalty. Why do you think they seem to be resisting the campaign?

For these countries, the death penalty is a domestic issue not related to internationally recognized human rights, hence they consider such campaigns do not apply to them.

Some African countries, like Cameroon are considered de-facto abolitionists; given that they have not carried out actual executions in several years. Why do they maintain the statutes in their legislations?

First of all, the countries considered as de-facto abolitionists differ from one NGO to another. At FIACAT, we choose to treat a country as such once it reached ten years without carrying any execution and showed real efforts on the path to abolition; that is to say, formulating bills or already having removed the death penalty from some elements of its judiciary system. Many of them will argue that either the public opinion is not ready to accept the abolition, as it could fuel impunity while the death penalty would be dissuasive, or that the current political situation is not fitting for such a step.

In fact, these arguments often hide a lack of political will or/and a darker desire to keep an effective tool that both allows to silence disturbing voices and maintain the population in a state of fear in countries where it is widely used: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia for example.