Malaysia to abolish MANDATORY death sentences

So the Malaysian government has said recently that they intend to do away with mandatory death penalty sentencing in all capital cases, capital punishment cases. I just wanna say a few words about that. First of all, try not to let this become a debate about the death penalty because it's not a debate about the death penalty. It's a debate about judicial discretion. The, empowering of judges to reach a verdict that they think is appropriate in any particular case given the circumstances, maybe mitigating circumstances in any particular case.

With mandatory sentencing, obviously, judges hands are tied and they just have to give whatever the mandatory sentence is. They can't make any allowances for mitigating circumstances and so on. So there shouldn't be a misrepresentation of what this intended change or reform constitutes. It does not constitute an abolition of the death penalty. I think most people, certainly in Malaysia, certainly most Muslim people believe in Qisas.

We believe in the death penalty and that it is an appropriate punishment in certain cases. But of course in Islam, the other side of Qisas is Afu, is Tanazil, is pardon, and Diya, the paying of compensation, financial compensation to a victim or the victim's family, their heirs. There isn't mandatory sentencing in the fiqh of Islam with regards to criminal cases. The judge should have discretion. So I would hope that people understand that getting rid of mandatory sentencing in death penalty cases doesn't mean getting rid of the death penalty.

And I would hope that people who support this reform don't try to present this as a move towards the gradual abolition of the death penalty because people do not support that. That's not what people in Malaysia and Muslim people certainly do not support the abolition of the death penalty altogether because it is an appropriate punishment in certain cases and it is a form of justice. And I saw one, argument that if the death sentence isn't mandatory, judges will be squeamish about meeting out the death penalty. I don't think that's true. That isn't true anywhere in the world where death penalty exists and judges have the discretion to, sentence people to death.

And certainly in Malaysia, where you have had mandatory sentencing of the death penalty for many many years and people have grown up with that and generations have become accustomed to that. And again, for Muslims, it's in our Sharia and certainly not in particularly heinous criminal cases. I don't think that a judge would be squeamish about sentencing someone to death if it is the appropriate sentence. I think that Malaysia should consider incorporating the practice in the system of Dia as a further empowerment to judges and also this empowers families of victims to have a greater voice in so far as they could either demand the death penalty and then that would be something that that the judge would consider in adjudicating a case and it would also give them the option to pardon and to receive financial compensation. And if the judge were to decide, for example, that the death penalty is not warranted, then he could order and say a prison sentence.

So the, perpetrator would go to prison and they would have to pay Dia to the family. Rather than without a Dia system and with, discretionary powers of the judge, if the judge were to decide that death penalty is not appropriate and he simply sentences the person to say life in prison or twenty years or twenty five years or ten years or whatever, the family still gets nothing except the the perpetrator going to prison. So even without the family pardoning, if the judge determines that there are mitigating circumstances in a case, he can sentence the perpetrator to prison, but the family will also get the financial compensation for that. So I think that's a positive thing, I think malicious should consider that. Anyway, please don't make this a debate about the death penalty.

It's not a debate about the death penalty. It's a debate about judicial discretion and increasing judicial discretion.