"As the April elections loom, marking 10 years of democracy,...

"As the April elections loom, marking 10 years of democracy, several political parties are voicing support for the death penalty as a way of reducing crime in a fresh bid to win votes.
These calls are unlikely to draw an overwhelming response as parties fail to explain how they will campaign for such a system to be reinstated.
"Calls for the reintroduction of this punishment, which was abolished in 1995, are likely to be repeated in subsequent elections," said Heather van Niekerk, executive director of Amnesty International South Africa. "But political parties are not using their election platforms to educate the public about what would be required to reintroduce the death penalty." Once abolished, the death penalty was seldom reintroduced, warned Van Niekerk. "Reintroducing the death penalty would require an amendment to chapter 2 of the constitution," she said. "Such an amendment can only be passed by the National Assembly, with a supporting vote of at least two-thirds of its members, and the National Council of Provinces, with a supporting vote of at least six provinces." Any party that wished to reintroduce the death penalty would need tremendous support to keep its promise to voters.
"None of the parties currently advocating the reintroduction of the death penalty appears to have that kind of support," said Van Niekerk. She said Amnesty International SA believed that the reintroduction of the death penalty would contradict the respect for human rights contained in the country's constitution. Our Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights support the right to life," she said. "The death penalty is a violation of that right; it is a degrading punishment for which there is no justification." The risk of executing innocent people could not be eliminated... A 1989 study conducted in the Cape Supreme Court found that of 32 judges who presided over capital cases from 1986 to 1988, three heard only 15% of the cases among them. But they were responsible for 51% of the cases in which the death sentence was handed down. Van Niekerk said: "Political parties have argued that the death penalty will reduce crime. If that were true, crime in the US should decrease and crime in the European Union should increase, but this is not the case." Far from being a solution to violence, the death penalty increased violence, she said."