NICHOLSON. we are wasting our energies in this flip-flop way in which we have to be dealing with the death penalty

Justice Minister and Attorney-General A J Nicholson says he is hoping for political consensus on the controversial issue of hanging.

"I am looking for consensus on both sides of the House," he told the Sunday Observer after his address to the official opening ceremony for the inaugural American/Caribbean Law Initiative Conference at the Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios on Friday.
The conference, which is the first of its kind, attracted the participation of law students from across the United States and the Caribbean.
The Government has long made it clear that it is in favour of the death penalty, but the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party has tended to appear undecided, opting for a conscience vote on the issue.

After leaving the conference, Nicholson said he had not ruled out the possibility of a referendum.
"It could, at some point, come to a referendum beyond that," the justice minister said, but made it clear that his first option would be to have the issue settled via a two-thirds majority vote in the House of Representatives.

"If we decide that the death penalty should be no more, I think we should just have a vote and put it to the people and let it be done," Nicholson said.
"We might very well, in the not-so-distant future, here in Jamaica, have to decide whether we are keeping the death penalty or not," he said. "I don't want to put a time on it. But. we are wasting our energies in this flip-flop way in which we have to be dealing with the death penalty."

Hanging remains on the law books although no one has gone to the gallows here since 1976. Chapter 3 section 14 of the constitution, addressing the issue of capital punishment, says "No person shall intentionally be deprived of his life save in execution of a sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been convicted".
One of the most common responses to any upsurge in crime is usually a call for the resumption of hanging, which international and local rights groups have urged the Government to resist.

The PNP campaigned on the resumption of hanging during the October 2002 general election, saying it would use the vote to get a mandate from the people to push through the constitutional changes to make it easier to enforce the death penalty. But earlier this month, the UK-based Privy Council ruled that automatic death penalties are unconstitutional.
Nicholson described the move, which was welcomed by rights activists, as one that would reopen the debate on the future of capital punishment. It was an issue, he said yesterday, that needed to be settled "once and for all, if the health of the island's laws and rule of law are to be maintained".
"I think if we concentrated our energies on going one way, (for or against the death penalty), it would be healthier," he said. "We cannot just be going in this see-saw manner. It is not healthy for the laws or the rule of law in the country."

Whatever the decision, Nicholson said, the Government would need the Opposition's support, as any legislative changes would need a two-thirds majority vote in the House.
"If we decide that we are going to keep the death penalty, it means that the Opposition would have to be co-operative. to make the constitutional changes, (as has Barbados), to make that possible," he said.

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