Inflicting the death penalty was the ultimate acknowledgement...

Inflicting the death penalty was the ultimate acknowledgement of the failure of civilisation, Australian High Court Justice Michael Kirby said. In a speech coinciding with the centenary of the High Court, Justice Kirby said the rekindling of the capital punishment debate in Australia following the Bali bombers' death penalties could not be ignored.
He said most lawyers in Australia were opposed to the death penalty because they knew justice systems were imperfect, research showed it was not an effective deterrent and executions brutalised the state that carried them out.
"The law will often fail, but inflicting the death penalty is the ultimate acknowledgment of the failure of civilisation," he told Reprieve Australia, a charity opposed to capital punishment, in Melbourne.
"That is why most lawyers oppose it."
A News poll in August found 56 per cent of Australians favoured introducing the death penalty for terrorism.
The federal government and opposition both opposed capital punishment but Greens leader Bob Brown accused Prime Minister John Howard of stirring a new debate after Bali Bomber Amrozi was sentenced to death in August 2003.
Justice Kirby said many commentators considered the federal government's ambivalence to the death sentences imposed on the Bali bombers "imprudent".
"The prisoners, if executed, may be rendered martyrs for a cause that could proliferate," he said.
"By failing to lift our voices in their case, we may disable ourselves from making representations in other cases where our national interests are not involved."
He said it was essential to stick to the basic principles of human rights when dealing with people who were unloved or seen as a threat.
Australia's adherence to these basic principles would be tested as it brought in and enforced anti-terrorist laws, he said.
"It is not tested in dealing with people like ourselves with whom we can identify," he said.
"It is tested when we deal with strangers who are hated and feared."
Justice Kirby detailed the history of capital punishment in Australia, which saw 114 people executed between 1901 and 1967.
The last person put to death was convicted murderer Ronald Ryan, who was hanged at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison on February 3 1967.