Subject: "HANDS OFF CAIN" Justice, not mercy
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X-Comment: The Transnational Radical Party List
by Franois Fejt
ABSTRACT: As the State represents the people's interests it must set an
example regarding the ethical behaviour it requires of its citizens by law.
It cannot, therefore, inflict the death penalty
(WORLDWIDE PARLIAMENTARY CAMPAIGN FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE DEATH PENALTY BY
THE YEAR 2000 - Radical party/International League for the abolition of the
death penalty by the year 2000)
As a young writer, I have given a lot of thought to the laws created by
Emperor Joseph II, son of Maria Theresa, who was what one might call an
enlightened despot. He may not have abolished slavery completely but he did
make the serf's lot a considerably happier one by issuing a decree of
tollerance, which paved the way for the emancipation of Protestants and
Jews. Furthermore, he abolished the death penalty throughout the monarchy.
Why did he actually do this? Was it out of indulgence or clemency? Not at
all. Joseph II was - as I have described him in the monograph I wrote - a
hard man, who was as exacting with his subjects as he was with himself, and
a puritan - quite unlike his brother Pietro Leopoldo of Tuscany, a
statesman who was both jovial and extremely adaptable. Joseph II was
against the death penalty because of his sense of justice. Or what he
supposed to be a sense of justice. He maintained that for serious crimes,
such as infanticide, parricide or high treason which were punishable by
death - in keeping with the concept of vengeful justice adhered to then -
the coup de grce was not enough! He considered hard labour for life far
more appropriate, and in keeping with the commandment: "Thou shalt not
kill."
I am neither a monarchist nor a puritan, but I have studied Machiavelli's
discourses enough to know the difference between ethics and politics. I
know from experience that a laxist attitude is of no help to a society that
has to defend itself against crime. The hard-won right to life and to one's
own property, and personal safety, must be defended, and those people who
violate it, must be punished. Certainly, one must combat crime in whatever
way possible, with education, preventive measures and a re-structuring of
society. But the act of acknowledging society's responsibility regarding
the increase of crime we have witnessed recently, even in the most
developed countries, does not justify impunity. If I am against the death
penalty, it is primarily because I believe that the State - in that it
represents the people's interests - must set an example as regards the
ethical behaviour it requires of its citizens by law. The State must punish
the guilty, render criminals harmless but refuse to inflict the death
penalty, which is inhuman - whatever the method chosen - and which
profoundly disturbs our moral sensitivity. In a world in which those forms
of hatred and violence that we believed to have disappeared continue to
flourish and the progress made by civilization is threatened - in all
countries - by a new wave of barbarity, I believe that the abolition of the
death penalty, once and for all, on the part of the U.N. would be an act of
faith in the sacredness of human life and in the values of brootherhood and
freedom that it is our duty to defend.
