Should There Be A National Referendum On Bringing Back Capital Punishment?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ukip-leadership-candidate-would-have-a-referendum-on-capital-punishment_uk_5815becfe4b0672ea688f17f

[andy-hughes]

AOG - if memoery serves, you have used that analogy before, and it is flawed.

You cannot imprison a dog as an example to other dogs because it is a concept beyond their understanding.

We put savage dogs down because we judge ourselves, and our safety to be superior, and above the worth of the life of an animal.

You cannot use that same moral compass in judgement of other human beings.

To do so is to say that a murderer is the equivalent of a dangerous dog, and that position is seriously fraught with too many moral and ethical complications

[youngmafbog]

A referendum, no mainly for the reasons NJ has put forward in th belonging the the ECHR it is pointless.

Is my opinion that the death penalty should be reintrodcued? Yes within boundaries yes, for instance for serial killers or treason.

What I would like to see, and I may be prepared to review of Death penalty opinion if it were to come about, is Life meaning life.No if's no buts.

Currently we are in a position where you can get more for fraud than murder in some cases. That has to be wrong. Life is more precious than materials.

[mikey4444]

Baldric...I am sure Andy H can answer for himself.

AO.....your daft analogy with dogs is fatally flawed.....if the dog is imprisoned for the rest of its life, than it danger to other dogs is removed just as surely as killing him would be. In other words, the killing would be unnecessary.

But humans and dogs are not the same, so your analogy means nothing.

Still only the one person voting for a Referendum I see.

[EDDIE51]

No.

[naomi24]

Mikey, //Still only the one person voting for a Referendum I see. //

You're not really getting this are you. Some people aren't voting for a referendum not because they disagree with capital punishment but because they know that no government would re-introduce capital punishment - hence a referendum would be a waste of time and money.

[mikey4444]

10Clarion.... "The last treason trial was that of William Joyce, "Lord Haw-Haw", who was executed by hanging in 1946"

[Mamyalynne]

//Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973.However hanging remained available until 1998 when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable by death.//

[mikey4444]

I forgot to mention 10Clarion.....this thread shows that there is no stomach for the re-introduction of the death penalty, amongst the majority of our regular posters.

[naomi24]

Mikey, you are funny. :o)

[EDDIE51]

10 Clarion street, you are 17 years out of date !
Since 1998 in the UK there has been NO death penalty for anything not even High Treason
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_treason_in_the_United_Kingdom

[mikey4444]

Thanks Eddie....good bit of detective work there !

[Baldric]

///Baldric...I am sure Andy H can answer for himself///

I'm equally sure he can Mikey.

That being the case why did you introduce his name into our conversation @ 10:27 other than to garner some perceived support for your deliberate misunderstanding of my question.

[New Judge]

“Capital punishment still exists for certain offences. I think treason is one of them.”

Not so, 10CS. This sets out the position (which I have cribbed, so not all my own work):

“In 1965, the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act abolished capital punishment for all offences, except treason, piracy with violence and arson in Royal Dockyards, all of which remained capital crimes. This was confirmed in 1969, after a quinquennial review of the law.
The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into UK law, banning capital punishment for murder except "in times of war or imminent threat of war". In January 1999, the then Home Secretary Jack Straw signed the Sixth Protocol of the ECHR, formally abolishing the death penalty in peacetime and in December that year, the Government ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This was followed by ratification of Protocol 13 in 2002, thereby totally abolishing capital punishment in Britain, including during times of war.”

So, not available and never likely to be again.

[mikey4444]

NJ......normally I would gladly to your superior knowledge of the law, but as I understand it, when the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 became law, the maximum sentence for treason in the UK has been life imprisonment.

[EDDIE51]

Mikey Read my Wikipedia link , high treason IS life imprisonment now.
All offences that were the death penalty are now 'life'.

[New Judge]

Yes quite so, Mikey. But the HRA effectively eradicated any examples where Capital Punishment may have been an option (although in practice there was never any possibility anybody being executed for anything since the abolition in the 1960s). When any new legislation was drafted where previously Capital Punishment was an option, quite sensibly that sanction was removed and replaced by Life.

[mikey4444]

NJ........I am so glad that we agree on "quite sensibly that sanction was removed and replaced by Life" (!)

( sorry AOG ......small question for NJ over on Chatterbank )....

[webbo3]

\\Capital punishment turns the state into a murderer. But imprisonment turns the state into a gay dungeon-master.// Emo Philips.



Dave.

[mikey4444]

Thanks for that Webbo....clear as mud now !