Nine Years on Death Row because grounds of judgment not written
MALAYSIA-DEATH PENALTY: Nine Years on Death Row, Denied Appeal
By Baradan Kuppusamy
"Hang me or release me but don’t leave me to suffer a slow death," is the cry of anguish from Baha Jambol, 45, who has been suspended helplessly here on death-row for nine long years, unable to appeal a death sentence. Jambol’s desperate predicament is not unique. It is caused by a serious flaw in Malaysian criminal justice system. Jambol was sentenced to death in April 1998 for being in possession of 50 kg of cannabis. He is unable to appeal because the trial judge has failed to put pen to paper and give the grounds sentencing him to ‘death by hanging’. "Without a written judgement we can’t appeal," Karpal Singh, Jambol’s lawyer and prominent human rights campaigner, told IPS. Jambol, a driver, was at the wheel of a car when cannabis was found inside. But the car owner, who was with him at the time, was acquitted. The scandal of the ink-shy judge, loath to put his judgements on paper, has shocked the nation and led to renewed demands for a swift end to the death penalty. "This case is a severe travesty of justice," said Singh. "Jambol has been languishing on death row for nine years… what can be crueller than this? I urge the government to immediately abolish the death penalty and end the misery of people on death row." Like Jambol, dozens of others wait in great misery in the country’s overcrowded jails unable to appeal their death sentences because trial judges have skipped their duty of spelling out their judgements on paper. Aziz Sharif, 28, was sentenced to death in 2001 for murdering his girlfriend, a conviction that his lawyer Harbahjan Singh says is deeply flawed. Six years on, Singh is still blocked from filing an appeal because there is no written judgement. Aziz is suffering severe mental torture while waiting to know his fate, his family, poor rice farmers from the southern state of Negri Sembilan, told the newspaper The New Straits Times earlier this month. They have appealed to the court numerous times to get the judge to write his judgment but without success. "I wrote five letters to the court over the matter and sadly they did not have the decency to reply to any of the letters," Singh told the paper. The same predicament is currently being endured by Haszaidi Hasan, also sentenced to death for drug trafficking in 2001. Opposition politicians and rights activists are now pressing for action against Malaysia’s indolent judges. "Their lackadaisical attitude has hamstrung the administration of justice to people who need it the most," opposition lawmaker Kulasegaran Murugesan told IPS. "If the judges had done their basic duties the convicted persons could have speedily filed their appeals and probably been acquitted. A long delay is a mark of a poor criminal justice system," he said, urging the government to set free death-row inmates caught in such a tragic predicament. He added: "A more lasting and more humane solution is to abolish the death penalty." The cases have also been taken up by the rights organisation Malaysians Against the Death Penalty. "Prisoners facing capital punishment are under severe pressure if their appeals are delayed," Charles Hector, the organisation’s co-director and lawyer, told IPS. "Judges should understand the tremendous pressure the death penalty generates… delaying their right to appeal is an act of utmost cruelty. Family members are also left emotionally drained by the uncertainties and the long meaningless delays. It is an intolerable form of torture."
Hector added: "This tragic delay is another reason to review the death penalty. We demand an immediate moratorium on all executions pending the abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia." Amnesty International has also expressed shock at the long inordinate delays and the resulting mental torture death row inmates suffer. There should be an immediate moratorium on all further executions, the organisation agrees.
The Malaysian Bar Association has taken up the scandal, calling on all the country’s lawyers to report back cases where clients are enduring a "slow death" because of long-delayed or non-existent written judgements. The association plans to present Malaysia’s Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Halim with a list of serious cases. The hope is the offending judges will be penalised, a sanction that might finally end the torment of many dozens like Jambol and Aziz left dangling on death-row. Malaysia imposes the death penalty for a raft of offences, from drug trafficking (15 grams of heroin and 200 grams of cannabis) to poisoning the water supply. Mandatory death penalties are also given for murder, possession of firearms, treason. Over a thousand persons have been executed since independence in 1957 and some 300 are currently awaiting execution on death row, many of them Acehnese from Indonesia convicted of trafficking cannabis.
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