About the Death Penalty Project
About the Death Penalty Project
For more than 20 years, Te Death Penalty Project has worked to protect the human rights of those facing the death penalty. Although the Project operates in all jurisdictions where the death penalty remains an enforceable punishment, its actions are concentrated in those countries which retain the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London and in other Commonwealth countries, principally in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.
Te Project’s main objectives are to promote the restriction of the death penalty in line with international minimum legal requirements; to uphold and develop human rights standards and the criminal law; to provide free and effective legal representation and assistance for those individuals who are facing the death penalty; and to create increased awareness and encourage greater dialogue with key stakeholders on the death penalty.
Te provision of free legal representation to men and women on death row has been critical in identifying and redressing a significant number of miscarriages of justice, promoting minimum fair trial guarantees, and establishing violations of domestic and international human rights. In many cases, forensic psychiatrists and clinical psychologists have been instructed pro bono, to assess prisoners and provide reports on their mental state. Many individuals facing execution have been found to be mentally disordered or mentally impaired impacting on pre-trial issues, mental condition defences, sentencing and the mercy process.
Some of the Project’s landmark cases which have restricted the implementation of the death penalty in the Caribbean include Pratt & Morgan v the Attorney General of Jamaica [1994] 2 AC 1, Lewis v the Attorney General of Jamaica [2001] 2 AC 50, Reyes v the Queen [2002] 2 AC 235, Te Queen v Hughes [2002] 2 AC 259, Fox v the Queen [2002] 2 AC 284 and Bowe & Davis v the Queen [2006] 1 WLR 1623. Other landmark cases include Mutiso v Republic, judgment of the Court of Appeal at Mombasa, 30th
General v Kigula et al., judgment of the Supreme Court of Uganda, 21st
July 2010 (abolition of the mandatory death penalty for murder in Kenya); Attorney January 2009 (abolition of
the mandatory death penalty and delay on death row in Uganda); Kafantayeni et al. v Attorney General 46 ILM 564 (2007) (abolition of the mandatory death penalty in Malawi); Boyce et al. v Barbados, decision of the Inter-American Court, 20th
November 2007 (savings clause, mandatory death penalty
and prison conditions found to be in violation of the American Convention on Human Rights) and Cadogan v Barbados, decision of the Inter-American Court, 24th penalty and lack of psychiatric evidence at trial).
September 2009 (mandatory death
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