Mandatory Death as a Punishment - (By Selena Kong, Wong Sook Yan & Teh Xiao Min)
By admin | January 21st, 2008 | Category: Jurisprudence, Law Students Essays |Mandatory Death as a Punishment
A. Overview
It is well known that punishment is a consequence for a person who commits a crime.
1. What is a crime?
Plato said: “A crime may be illegal or immoral or both. In either case, the crime is committed in disobedience to a known set of rules.”
As for practices of the States, the rules for crimes are well entrenched in its criminal codes. These rules are decided by the legislator for which acts are criminal before proceeding upon a general justification for punishment for those acts.
2. Must certain crimes be necessarily followed by mandatory death sentence?
Hart viewed that in order to find a satisfactory explanation for the above, there is a need to answer some different questions.
a. What justifies the practice of punishment – mandatory death?
b. To whom may the punishment be applied?
c. How severely may we punish?
d. Further, to consider the punishment is distributive (the man is singled out for punishment) and general justifying aim (the aims to punish him in such a way).
B. Discussion
For the purpose of this treatise, two countries (China and Malaysia) are chosen to discuss the justification of mandatory death in the country itself, by answering Hart’s questions, taking into account that both countries practice mandatory death as one of the punishments in their criminal justice system.
C. Concept:
CHINA:
Generally, there are two types of death penalty:
- Immediate execution, and
- Death sentence with suspension that allows for the commutation of the sentence when the condemned prisoners do not deliberately commit further crimes during the 2 years suspension period.
According to a reliable report from the Amnesty International, the true figure (though is classified as the State secret) is believed to be higher than the reported, estimated at around 7,500 to 8,000 people in the year of 2006. Mandatory death can be applied to 68 wide-ranging offences including violent, non-violent and economic crimes….
Please click on the below link to read the full article: