Capital Punishment Bill
The Capital Punishment Bill has been reported back to Parliament by the joint committee of both Houses with its principal clause—restoring the death penalty for murder—unchanged. On the evidence that the committee heard, the report was justified, since the opinions’ of prison and police offlcials, who ipay be regarded as the leading experts in New Zealand, clearly favoured restoration of the death penalty as a valuable deterrent, while evidence against the proposal, judging from newspaper summaries, was not as authoritative, detailed, or well-prepared. But to say that the committee’s report was justified by the evidence is not to say that the committee discharged its duty as fully as could be wished. • The inquiry was not as searching as the gravity of the subject demanded; the committee apparently did not press for a competent analysis of the views of eminent 'overseas penologists and of the experience of other countries where the death penalty has been abolished; and the committee did not wait until it could study both the proceedings and the report of the English Royal Commission inquiring into the practicability of defining degrees of murder. In the result, members of Parliament will vote on the bill informed only by expert opinion favouring capitalpunishment, or guided by their own emotions or prejudices. It should be added that the commit-
tee ha» improved the bill by emending the clause fixing a minimum term of 20 years’ imprisonment for reprieved murderers. The committee recommends that the term in each case be left to the discretion of the Governor-General-in-Council. The bill has been further improved by removing the clauses dealing with infanticide, which can be covered more appropriately in other legislation.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26263, 7 November 1950, Page 6
Word Count
280Capital Punishment Bill Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26263, 7 November 1950, Page 6
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