Doctor Mama Amon
JF-Expert Member
- Mar 30, 2018
- 2,089
- 2,725
The Tanzanian dream toward a republican constitutional democracy mandates each and every citizen, including the secret service staff, whose discipline is managed, based on the regulations constituting the code of conduct for the secret service staff, by the Director General of Intelligence Service (DGIS), to protect and promote the rule of law over impunity, strong institutions over strong individuals, and a pluralistic society over a monistic society.
However, following the recent Mwakalebela's tragic abduction, torture and attempted murder, now it is undisputed that, under President Samia's sixth government, the State security management policy of squeezing civic space by elevating impunity over the rule of law, a monistic society over a pluralistic society, strong individuals over strong institutions, as strategies of brutally eliminating government critics, has been activated by the Tanzanian secret service agencies.
This has happened despite the fact that it is incompatible with President Samia's philosophy of Reconciliation, Resilience, Reforms and Rebuilding (4Rs), it is violative of constitutional principles of inviolable dignity of human life, and it contradicts the fact that President Samia took an oath to protect the same constitution.
For these reasons, an argument for legal reforms to abolish death penalty, both intra-judicial and extra-judicial, is presented through this Ministerial Policy Brief. To drive home this proposal the following arguments are dialectically discussed and concluded with precision:
- An argument from the principle of overriding duty;
- An argument from the dignity of human life;
- An argument from the duty to defend the common good;
- An argument from theology;
- An argument from bias against poor people;
- An argument from procedural justice;
- An argument from substantive justice;
- An argument from economic efficiency; and
- An argument from the deterrence of violent crime.
- An argument from the promotion of key human values;
No wander Mwakalebela's abduction narrative proves that, he was kidnapped by trained and qualified secret service agents, who infiltrated his telephone communications, conspired with a person who would be his new landlord, was kept at Oysterbay police station which was used as an abduction coordination center, government cars were used to transport him from Dar to Arusha, then to Katavi.
This ordeal took seven days, during which the Oysterbay OCD must have reported the matter to the Dar es Salaam RPC, who in turn must have reported the matter to IGP, who in turn must have reported it to the Minister of Home Affairs, and in turn must have reported it to the President of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan. Thus, President Samia ought to, and can, know the criminal kidnappers, who have not been arrested so far.
Key takeaways include: Our secret service agents intruded the constitutionally protected privacy of Mwakalebela; they bodily assaulted him with a view of violating his life; they were not happy with his utterances via the social media; President Samia knows the criminal kidnappers by names and has kept silent about it, although what was done is contrary to the constitution which she took oath to defend.
All of these are illegal acts, since the secret service agents are neither above the law nor above the constitution. Thus, our security management institutions need reforms to bring more discipline to our secret service agencies.
3. Study approach
Given the failed attempt of extra-judicial death penalty against Mwakalebela, this study sought to answer the following questions:
- What is judicial killing as opposed to extra-judicial killing?
- What are the arguments, pro and con, regarding the judicial death penalty as a deterrent to violent crime?
- What are the arguments, pro and con, that judicial death penalty saves money?
- What are the arguments, pro and con, that judicial capital punishment is an act of justice?
- What "procedural justice" issues must be taken into consideration when speaking about judicial death penalty?
- How do both supporters and opponents of the death penalty interpret scriptural passages which support judicial death penalty?
- How did some historical scholars justify their support for judicial death penalty?
- How do both supporters and opponents of judicial death penalty cite human dignity in their arguments?
- Are there human values that would be promoted by abolishing judicial death penalty?
- What are the difficulties which are inherent in the administration of judicial death penalty?
- What are the arguments, pro and con, regarding judicial death penalty as a motivation for extra-judicial killings which are implemented by secret service agents?
Understanding extra-judicial killings
The first question to be answered was, "What is judicial killing as opposed to extra-judicial killing?"
Going by wikipedia y definition, extrajudicial killing, also known as an extrajudicial execution or an extralegal killing, is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding.
It typically refers to government authorities, whether lawfully or unlawfully, targeting specific people for death, which in authoritarian regimes often involves political, trade union, dissident, religious and social figures.
The term is typically used in situations that imply the human rights of the victims have been violated; deaths caused by legal police actions (such as self-defense) or legal war fighting on a battlefield are generally not included, even though military and police forces are often used for killings seen by critics as illegitimate.
Generally, "disappearances" and "extrajudicial executions" are not only acts of extreme cruelty, violating the laws of the countries where they are perpetrated; they also violate international standards on human rights. The development of these standards since the Second World War has been one of the great achievements of the world community.
For example, article 2 of the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance ("UN Declaration on Disappearances"), states that "No state shall practice, permit or tolerate enforced disappearances."
Article 1 of the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, states that, "Governments shall prohibit by law all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions."
And Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." These rights are violated when "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions are perpetrated.
An argument from the principle of overriding duty
The principle of overriding duty was first summarized by one South African philosopher (Dennis Hurley 1968) and improved by another Western philosopher (John Kippley 1991) as follows:
'The principle of overriding duty boils down to this. Situations arise in life when one duty clashes with another duty. For instance, when I am attacked, my duty to preserve my own life clashes with my duty to respect the life of another; when I am in dire need, my duty to preserve my life clashes with my duty to respect the property of another; when an infected organ threatens my life, my duty to life clashes with my duty to preserve my bodily integrity; when I am bound by secrecy, my duty to preserve the secret may clash with my duty to tell the truth. In all these cases we admit that one duty predominates over another duty. This seems to indicate that we need to formulate the general principle underlying these various particular convictions. The formulation I proposed was: "When the infringement of one obligation is necessarily involved in the exercise of a proportionately superior duty, the first obligation ceases.'" (Hurley 1968).
In the above list of antithetical duties, the author could have added the duty to perform extrajudicial killing as opposed to the duty to respect the life of a citizen who is targeted in extrajudicial killing, being targeted allegedly for committing a capital evil. Our concern is extrajudicial killing.In short, extrajudicial killing is wrong because it is a Machiavellian principle, according to which, good ends may justify evil means of realizing them. Once this principle is accepted anything goes, and the society is no more. So, it must be rejected.
An argument from the deterrence of violent crime
The first argument for death penalty is an argument from the deterrence of violent crime. It states that capital punishment acts as a deterrent to violent crime. Society has a duty to protect its citizens from violent offenders; to do this it must establish the harshest punishments possible. If individuals know that execution is the potential punishment for a crime they are about to commit, they might think twice before committing it.
On this view, capital punishment protects the public from further crime by the offender. It is argued that as long as criminals remain alive in prison there is the possibility that they could be paroled or escape and reenter society. Also, it is argued that, if these individuals are incarcerated for life with no possibility of parole, there is nothing that prevents them from killing guards or other inmates. On this view, the death penalty is the only way to assure that society's most heinous offenders will never again commit a violent crime.
In response, death penalty opponents object by arguing that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to crime. For example, according to the America’s FBI's Uniform Crime Report of 2008, the American South had a murder rate of 6.6 per 100,000 people, the highest in America, even though southern states (particularly Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma) led the nation in the number of executions.
Conversely, in the Northeast where a majority of states do not have the death penalty, the murder rate in 2008 was 4.2 per 100,000 people, the lowest in the nation.
Citing these figures, as well as the results of numerous scientific studies, opponents hold that there is no definitive evidence that the death penalty acts as an effective deterrent to crime.
An argument from economic efficiency
The second argument for death penalty is an argument from economic efficiency. It holds that executing convicted murderers is less expensive than keeping them alive in a maximum-security prison for the rest of their lives.
Assuming it costs $50,000 per year to maintain an individual in a maximum-security prison. If the individual is relatively young, say 35 years old, he has on average another 40 years to live. Multiplying forty years by $50,000 gives a $2 million bill that the taxpayers must absorb. Given that, prison operating costs are continually increasing it is logical to conclude that, the cost of a life sentence can be higher than this figure.
In response, death penalty opponents dispute the claim that it is less expensive to execute convicted violent offenders. On their view, in a death penalty cases, significantly more pretrial preparation is needed and more motions are filed, necessitating more attorneys.
The bifurcated trial and the need to question jurors about their views on the death penalty add both time and expense. In addition, when a death sentence is handed down, the defendant is entitled to an automatic appeal which adds to the expense even more.
In terms of real numbers, a 2003 review of capital case expenses in America’s Kansas revealed that the median cost for a non-death penalty trial was $740,000 while that for a death penalty trial was $1.26 million, or 70 percent more. The Kansas study also demonstrated that appeal costs in death sentence cases were approximately twenty times higher than those for non-death sentence cases.
Another America’s Maryland study in 2008 predicted that the aggregate expenses of all death penalty cases since 1978 would cost the state approximately $186 million, or $37.2 million for each of the five people who have been executed.
In America’s California, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2005 that the death penalty system cost the state $114 million per year more than it would to house people in prison for life, and that each actual execution cost state taxpayers an average of $250 million.
The irony here is striking: in pursuing death sentences, states often end up paying twice. They pay very high up-front costs to gain a death sentence, but often end up with the costs of a life sentence anyway.
An argument from substantive justice
The third argument for death penalty is an argument from substantive justice. Justice is commonly defined as "rendering to each what is owed to them," or "rendering to each his due." Death penalty supporters argue that if an individual intentionally takes the life of another, then this individual must be punished in the same way.
Just as when one person steals from another and justice demands that the offender return what was taken or make
proportionate restitution, so also when one intentionally takes the life of another, justice demands that the perpetrator make restitution with his or her own life.
This argument is often expressed by the families of murder victims. They believe that as a matter of justice, the one who took their loved one's life must die in return.
Death penalty opponents counter this argument by asking whether executing a violent offender is really an act of justice. Do we put a person to death because we believe it is a just response to what he or she has done, or are we doing it out of a sense of vengeance?
The most popular answer is that, since an irreplaceable loss cannot be replaced, and given that an irretrievable loss cannot be retrieved, then vengeance through the instrumentality of death penalty is not justice.
This thought process should force us to ask ourselves exactly what our motivation is for executing violent offenders. Are we seeking justice or vengeance? The line separating them is not always clear.
An argument from procedural justice
The fourth argument against death penalty is an argument from procedural justice. On this view, since execution is the most final punishment one can receive, the state must assure that the defendant's due process rights have been upheld at all stages of trial, sentencing, and appeal before putting the person to death.
We have to ask: Did the defendant receive an adequate defense? Was all testimony from both the prosecution and defense presented at trial? Was the judge impartial? Was the jury impartial, and did it consist of the defendant's peers?
While we would expect that all these requirements would be met in a capital trial, we know that this has not always been the case. Defendants have been convicted and executed for capital crimes even when there were serious due process deficiencies with their cases.
In fact, in America, since 1973 more than 130 individuals have been taken off of death row after new evidence arose in their cases. Examples include witnesses who admit they were pressured into lying at the original trial, the confession of the actual killer, and more reliable forms of forensic testing including DNA tests.
The new evidence either proved that the person convicted had not committed the crime or raised reasonable doubt. This begs an important question: if more than 100 people have been exonerated since just 1973, how many innocent people have we actually put to death?
An argument from bias against poor people
The fifth argument against death penalty is an argument from bias, where capital punishment is unfairly applied to the poor. Simply put, rich people do not go to death row. Defendants who can afford high-powered attorneys are less likely to be convicted or, on the prudent advice of counsel, can plea-bargain for a lighter sentence.
In America, a large percentage of today's death row inmates were represented by court-appointed attorneys (public defenders) who simply were not qualified to take on a capital case or who, because of heavy caseloads, did not have the time or resources to mount an adequate defense. No matter what one believes about the death penalty itself, there is little debate that financial status is a determining factor in whether one receives a sentence of life in prison or death.
An argument from theology
The sixth argument against death penalty is an argument from religious scriptures to frame their theological arguments to justify capital punishment.
For example, the "eye for eye" passage (Exodus 21:23) is interpreted to mean that if one person takes the life of another, society may extract the same price from the offender. The problem with this widely held interpretation is that it is taken out of context. The passage actually reads:
When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one should be fined as much as the woman's husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges. But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Exod. 21:22-25)
When read in context, we see that the "eye for eye" passage was not necessarily intended as a justification for capital punishment. Its real purpose was restraint. It was meant to assure that an offender's punishment was proportionate to the crime committed, not to justify absolutely the taking of the offender's life.
Another difficulty with using scriptures to justify capital punishment is the large number of offenses punishable by death. These offenses included blasphemy, idolatry, witchcraft, adultery, homosexuality, profaning the Sabbath, and cursing a parent.
If we were to follow the scriptural teachings strictly and execute every adulterer, homosexual, and all who have worked on the Sabbath or cursed their parents, we would have exponentially more executions!
Death penalty supporters also cite the New Testament to justify capital punishment, particularly Romans, chapter 13, where Saint Paul teaches that all people, Christians included, are subject to governmental authority. Paul warns,
"But if you do evil, be afraid, for it [civil authority] does not bear the sword without purpose; it is the servant of God to inflict wrath on the evildoer" (Rom. 13:4).
Based on this verse, supporters of death penalty argue that as Saint Paul taught that civil authority legitimately bears the sword and can use it to inflict wrath, then capital punishment is morally justified.
In response, opponents of death penalty counter by arguing that the phrase "bear the sword" is vague; we do not know for sure how Paul intended it. Does it mean that civil authority has the power to execute, or simply that it has a mandate to punish offenders?
Without specifying what forms of punishment the state authority can legitimately impose, some eminent Catholic biblical scholars, maintain that the sword represents "the symbol of penal authority, of the power legitimately possessed by a civil authority to coerce recalcitrant citizens to maintain order and strive for the common good by obeying the law of the society."
So, Paul's use of the phrase "bear the sword" more likely had a broader scope, referring to the authority of law enforcement officials, civil guards, or even those who enforced taxation policies. Overall, it is difficult to claim that these, or any other, biblical passages offer a single, consistent teaching on the issue of capital punishment.
An argument from the duty to defend the common good
The seventh argument against death penalty is an argument from the duty of state authority to defend the common good of society.
In fact, the question of legitimate authority also plays an important role in the theological debate over capital punishment, where, the key question is: Do we, either as individuals or the state, have the authority to take the life of a human being who has committed a capital crime?
This is a particularly challenging question. Most moral systems hold that it is permissible to use lethal force in self-defense. If Aaron is directly threatening Noah's life or is imminently intending him great physical harm, then it is morally permissible for Noah to use deadly force to prevent Aaron from inflicting this harm, assuming that Noah has no non-lethal option.
However, death penalty opponents point out that when the state is actually putting a criminal to death, it is difficult to see how the condemned poses a direct and imminent threat to anyone. If at the moment of his execution the condemned is not directly threatening the life, health, or well-being of another person, by what moral authority does the state put him to death?
Death penalty supporters respond by arguing that the state's authority to execute comes from its duty to defend the common good. This is to say that, a primary function of the state is to promote the overall good of its citizens, and one of the ways it does this is by protecting citizens from those who would cause them harm. This understanding actually formed the foundation of the historical support of capital punishment during the period of scholars such as St. Thomas Aquinas and those before him.
Tertullian (d. 220) taught that putting offenders to death was one of civil authority's just punishments, although he did instruct Christians to refrain from holding civil positions that would force them to make judgments over others' lives.
Clement of Alexandria (d. 215) held that while reform of the offender was a "higher" purpose of punishment, imposing death was permissible if the individual in question was deemed "incurable" and if the possibility existed that others in the community could be harmed by him. He used the image of a medical amputation to demonstrate his point. If you have a diseased limb, you amputate it in order to save the rest of your body. On his view, if a society has a "diseased" member, this member could be "cut away" in order to save the rest of the community.
Origen (d. 254) agreed in principle with both Tertullian and Clement, but added that capital punishment could also act as a form of expiation for sin. Origen believed that the execution itself was the offender's "final" punishment. In other words, through execution the offender was absolved from his sin, and after being put to death God would not punish him any further for his offense.
Capital punishment, therefore, should not be viewed as cruel or unusual, but "full of mercy" because the one put to death is purged of his sin rather than condemned to hell for all eternity.
During the medieval period as well, it was recognized that, although regrettable, capital punishment, as well as war, was sometimes necessary to maintain peace and stability within the community.
Specifically, Thomas Aquinas taught that legitimate authority, understood as those agents responsible for maintaining public order, could legitimately put an offender to death if the offender posed a serious threat to the common good of the community.
He justified this position, in part, by citing the relationship between the whole and the part. The whole is always greater than, and prior to, any of the individual parts, and the good of the whole supersedes that of its individual members. In the case of an individual posing a grave threat to the community, the greater good of the community always outweighs the good of the individual, and thus capital punishment can be morally justified. On this argument, Aquinas wrote:
"Now each individual person is related to the whole community as part to whole. And therefore, if some man is a threat to the community and a corruption in it because of a certain offense, it is praiseworthy and wholesome to kill him, that the common good may be preserved." (Summa Theologiae, 2-2, question 64, article 2, ad 1.)
Following the position proposed by Grisez (1970) and Vatican (2024) it seems to me that this argument as it stands is unsatisfactory for at least three reasons.
First, if protection of the common good is, as such, sufficient justification for killing evildoers, why is the same purpose not sufficient justification for killing the innocent? For example, why should abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia be excluded as methods of limiting population, when such limitation is urgently demanded for the common good?
Second, capital punishment is not really essential to protect the common good from injury by wicked persons. What may be necessary is their effective separation from society. Such separation often has been achieved by ostracism or banishment or by imprisonment.
If diseased organs had a life of their own—e.g., if the diseased part were an unborn child—one would perhaps be justified in separating the sick partfrom the healthy for the good of the whole, but one would hardly be justified in destroying the diseased part if lifesaving separation could be achieved without such destruction.
A third, and more profound, difficulty with Aquinas' primary argument regarding capital punishment is that the individual person is not a part of the community in the way that members of a body are parts of the whole organism.
"Wholeness," "common good," and "subordination of parts" are not univocal. Aquinas surely was aware that he was arguing by analogy, but he apparently did not carefully consider how weak the analogy is.
We might grant that the good of a citizen precisely as citizen is subordinate to the common good of society, but the role of citizen is only one dimension of one's whole personality, and the whole person cannot be rightly viewed as a mere part of the social whole. This year the Vatican defended this position in the following terms:
"Here, one should also mention the death penalty, for this also violates the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances. In this regard, we must recognize that “the firm rejection of the death penalty shows to what extent it is possible to recognize the inalienable dignity of every human being and to accept that he or she has a place in this universe. If I do not deny that dignity to the worst of criminals, I will not deny it to anyone. I will give everyone the possibility of sharing this planet with me, despite all our differences.” It is also fitting to reaffirm the dignity of those who are incarcerated, who often must live in undignified conditions. Finally, it should be stated that—even if someone has been guilty of serious crimes—the practice of torture completely contradicts the dignity that is proper to every human being."(Vatican's Dignitas Infinita, Para 34)
This is precisely why we reject totalitarian regimes and maintain that all persons have some fundamental rights that the society may not take away.
Religious liberty, for instance, testifies to the conviction that man is not made merely for human society.
Concerning national security and individual civil liberty interests I found that, the two are not mutually exclusive, but they manifest a part-whole relationship and a whole cannot be without its parts.
The standard rule is that, we can and must balance both interests appropriately because, in the final analysis, if we cannot secure our national security interests, civil liberty interests will mean very little, and vice versa.
The fact that there is a part-whole relationship between national security interests and individual civil liberty interests, entails the conclusion that there is an inseparable connection between the two.
This connection follows from the observation that, individual citizens are parts of a nation-state, the other two of its three key parts being the territory and the state authority, where each of the three is a part of a larger whole spatial and temporal order, whose integrity cannot stand if any of its parts is partly or fully mutilated.
Thus, the abduction, torture and attempted extra-judicial killing of one Edgar Edson Mwakabela (Sativa255), is a sad event which provides concrete and incriminating evidence on the government's incompetence in good governance and state security management.
Specifically, it partly proves President Samia's government's failure to strike the right balance between national security interests and the constitutionally protected civil liberties in Tanzania.
In other words, this evidence implies a failure of her 4R's philosophy, namely the Reconciliation, Resilience, Reforms and Rebuilding philosophy!
An argument from the dignity of human life
The eighth argument against death penalty is an argument from the inviolability of the dignity of human life.
Under this argument, opponents of death penalty posit that, human life is the greatest gift we have; that life is of infinite value, and we have only one chance at it; that, once taken away, human life can never be given back, a fact that should make us think long and hard about our stance on the death penalty; that all individuals, no matter what evils they have committed, always retain their dignity and their lives always remain inviolable; and that, as we debate the morality of capital punishment, we must constantly remind ourselves that we are talking about a human life.
They lament that, our society tends to diminish the value of those who have committed horrendous crimes, as if to say that such people do not deserve to be considered human persons.
Against these assumptions, one very important question arises: Do we uphold human dignity when we execute capital offenders, or does respect for dignity demand that we refrain from putting them to death?
Death penalty opponents argue that because these offenders maintain their dignity as human persons, the state is never morally justified in putting them to death. When the state does execute, it infringes upon the inviolability of human life.
Death penalty supporters counter by claiming that executing capital offenders does uphold human dignity because the offender's forfeiture of his own life serves to enhance the overall value of life as a whole. Their argument is that executions actually demonstrate how valuable human life is. Life is of so great a value that if you take the life of another, the price you will have to pay is your own.
The death penalty supporters’ argument is intriguing because it refocuses the object of human dignity. Here, the focus is not on the dignity of the offender, but on that of the victim. From this perspective, it is morally justified to execute murderers simply because the forfeiture of their lives underscores the value and dignity of those who died by their hand.
An argument from the promotion of key human values
That, abolishing death penalty would promote four important human values, the first value being peace. The abolition of capital punishment would be an important first step in breaking the cycle of violence so prevalent in society, and bringing about a more peaceful society, which is free from violence-laden movies, music, television programs, and video games.
That, abolishing death penalty would promote four important human values, the second value being the unique dignity and worth of every human person, since, the dignity and worth of all people impels the nation to minister to the needs of outcasts and those whom society rejects, including violent offenders, no matter what evils they may have committed.
That, abolishing death penalty would promote four important human values, the third value being the inviolable human life, and hence a consistent ethic of human life and its overall defense, where, this ethic holds that if one claims to be pro-life, then one must defend all human life at every stage of its existence.
That, abolishing death penalty would promote four important human values, the fourth value being forgiveness as opposed to death penalty, which allows another chance to the other to learn and reform, since forgiveness is a "dynamic encounter" between the offender and the offended, where, the way that the offended responds to the offender says a lot about who the offended is as a person.
Stock-taking from the debate
In order to make proper stock-taking, it is important to note that, several questions have been raised and discussed so far. The responses can be summarized as follows: It has been established:
That, as a matter of justice, violent offenders must be punished for their crimes. But in administering punishment, the offender remains a human person and not otherwise. The implication of this understanding is that no one, the state included, has an absolute right to take the life of another human being.
That, abolishing the death penalty challenges us as a nation to develop more humane, hopeful, and effective responses to violent crime and to deal with criminals intelligently and compassionately, not simply with power and vengeance.
That, there is a number of "difficulties" inherent with the death penalty, such as: bias in that death sentences are disproportionately imposed on the poor; the possibility of error in that innocent people can be executed-a reality that the bishops regarded "with a special horror"-and its process involves long and unavoidable delays, which work to undermine its deterrence factor; executions causing anguish for the families of the condemned, his victim, and the prison officials who have to carry out the death sentences; attracting "unhealthy" publicity in that the media tend to focus on the conflict between death penalty supporters and opponents, which in turn, undermines the possibility for serious and respectful public dialogue; and closing the door to the possibility for the criminal to reform, to make restitution, to be rehabilitated, or to grow as a moral being.
That, the primary purpose of punishment is to "redress the disorder caused by the offence, meaning that, if an individual commits a crime, civil authority has the duty to redress the violation by imposing on the offender a punishment, where this obligation justifies the right of the state to use force to protect its citizenry, as well as inflict punishment that is proportionate to the seriousness of the offense committed.
That, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society, although such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.
In short, it is based on the improper application of the principle of totality to the state as a corporate person that, Mwakalebela, who is now treated as a "diseased member" of the political body called Tanzania, has been wrongly treated as if he is a sub-human individual, akin to the mistreatment of African slaves by Arab slave traders for 700 years! This is unacceptable.
These Arabs belonged to a category of persons who are uncivilized, uncultured and evil to the core when it come to the duty to respect the dignity of human life, as it is evidenced by the denigration of the dignity of Bantu human during the era of the Arabic slave trade.
Thus, this new event is our wake-up call for vigilance against such impunities from now on.
5. Policy implications
The key point so far is that, because human dignity is infinite, meaning that it transcends all spatial and temporal circumstances without exception, under no circumstances is death penalty, whether intra-judicial or extra-judicial, warranted.
Thus, legal reform is called upon to abolish death penalty. It is hoped that, by such an abolition, our secret service agencies will accordingly amend their covert operation strategies. Specifically, in penal code, wherever death penalty is prescribed, life sentence should be an alternative.
6. References
- Germain Grisez (1970), "Toward a consistent natural law ethics of killing," The American Journal of Jurisprudence, Volume 15.
- Vatican’s Dicastery for The Doctrine of The Faith (2024), “Declaration ‘Dignitas Infinita’ On Human Dignity,”
- Denis Hurley, In Defense of the Principle Of Overriding Right, Theological Studies 29 (1968)301-309, at 301.
- John F. Kippley (1991), Sex and the Marriage Covenant, 2nd Edition (San Fransisco: Ignatius Press), 301
- UN Declaration, 1945.