Citing its “Christian values” and the Unavailability of Any Humane Means to Carry out its Murders ["executions"], Papua New Guinea Abolishes the Death Penalty

From [HERE] Citing its “Christian values” and the unavailability of any humane means to carry out executions, Papua New Guinea has abolished capital punishment. 

On January 20, 2022, the PNG parliament voted to repeal the nation’s 30-year-old death penalty statute and replace capital punishment with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. 

“For us as a Christian nation,” Prime Minister James Marape (pictured) said, “the notion of ‘thou shall not kill’ still prevails.” The death penalty, Marape said, “is not an effective deterrent to serious crime and offences.”

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet “warmly welcome[d]” the parliament’s vote, characterizing it as “reinforcing the rule of law and strengthening public confidence that those found guilty after trials following due process and in line with human rights standards will receive fair, proportionate and consistent punishment.” 

The parliament’s action came in the wake of an August 2021 ruling by the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea that lifted stays of execution for 14 death-row prisoners, removing the last legal hurdle preventing the first executions in 70 years in the 9 million-person nation in western Oceania. In 2013, the PNG cabinet proposed hanging, firing squad, and lethal injection as methods of execution after the country’s constitutional law reform commission traveled to the United States and neighboring Southeast Asian island nations to study their administration of capital punishment. 

Presenting the abolition bill to parliament, Justice Minister Bryan Kramer said PNG did not have the “necessary administrative mechanisms and infrastructure” to conduct executions humanely. The bill commuted the death sentences of 40 death-row prisoners to life without parole.