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Malaysia’s parliament on Monday passed sweeping legal reforms to remove the mandatory death penalty, reduce the number of crimes punishable by death and abolish the natural life sentence.
Malaysian parliament. (from Reuters)
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Malaysia There has been a moratorium on executions since 2018, when it first pledged to abolish the death penalty entirely.
However, the government faced political pressure from some parties and backtracked a year later, saying it would keep the death penalty but allow courts to replace it with other sentences at their discretion.
Alternatives to the death penalty include flogging and 30 to 40 years in prison, according to the amendment passed Monday. The new sentences will replace all previous provisions requiring incarceration during the offender’s natural life.
Life imprisonment, defined by Malaysian law as a fixed term of 30 years, will be retained.
The death penalty will also be abolished Under the new measure, as an option for some serious crimes that do not result in death, such as shooting and trafficking firearms and kidnapping.
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Deputy Law Minister Lanka Pasingh said the death penalty was an irreversible punishment that failed to effectively deter crime.
“The death penalty is not doing what it wants to do,” he said, wrapping up parliamentary debate on the bill.
The passed amendments will apply to 34 crimes currently punishable by death, including murder and drug trafficking. Eleven of them took it as mandatory punishment.
Malaysia’s move comes even as some of its Southeast Asian neighbors have stepped up their use of the death penalty.
last year, Singapore executes 11 for drugsMyanmar carried out its first death sentences in decades against four pro-democracy activists, government data showed.
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