The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Office has joined in calls for the government to come up with tangible legal reforms following President Hakainde Hichilema’s pledge to abolish the death penalty.
While welcoming President Hichilema’s pledge to abolish the death penalty, the UN office says this could only be achieved by working with Parliament.
It says the use of the death penalty is incompatible with fundamental human rights and dignity, hence the need to end the cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment.
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango notes that abolishing the sanction in law would be a major step forward for human rights in the country, adding to the growing consensus worldwide for universal abolition of the death penalty.
He discloses in a statement availed to ZANIS that his organisation is advising the Zambian government to promptly work on legal hitches regarding the abolishing of the death penalty.
“We urge the Zambian Government and Parliament to promptly bolster the President’s pledge with tangible legal reforms,” Mr. Magango stated.
Further, the UN office advises Zambia to amend the Penal Code Act and the Criminal Procedure Code Act to remove capital provisions, as well as re-launch the Constitutional Reform process to expand the Bill of Rights, including with explicit prohibition of the death penalty.
Mr. Magango encouraged the government to demonstrate international leadership on the key issue by ratifying the second optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on abolition of the death penalty.
He assured that the UN Human Rights Office is ready to provide technical assistance and cooperation to the Zambian authorities to make this promise a reality.
Yesterday Human Rights Commission Chairperson Mudford Mwandenga said his Commission expects the progressive Presidential pronouncement on abolishing the death penalty to followed with tangible action on legal reforms.
Mr Mwandenga said the Commission is aware that the death penalty is permissible under Article 12 of the Constitution, Chapter 1 of the laws of Zambia, in execution of a sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offense under the law in force in Zambia of which a person has been convicted.
The policy pronouncement by the President, he said , can be actualized through the amendment of penal laws such as the Penal Code Act and the Criminal Procedure Code Act Chapter 88 of the laws of Zambia.
On the eve of Africa Day President HICHILEMA announced that government has taken the decision to abolish the death penalty.
If you consciously take a life, as in murder cases ………
I belive you should pay with your own life…………
HEHH , watch these people asking you to be like Jesus………..
These are the same people wanting you to drop all laws that control Morals and decency in zambia …………
Keep the death penalty. It will be needed once pf is back in power in 2026 to prosecute the evil upnd regime
JOKE OF THE YEAR SO FAR
PF BACK IN 2026 KIKIKI
Anti UPND views are being censored by LT
If HH’s pronouncement to abolish the death sentence in Zambia stemmed from advice by a legal team, then this advice was ill-conceived. This provision will will result in loss of many lives by killers knowing that they will not be executed, but will be fed by the State if sentenced to life imprisonment. Temptations to speculate that the pronouncement was meant to protect killers of political opponents cannot be ruled out. In this World, rivalry that leads to deaths prevails at family level, tribal level, religious level and even within each political grouping. In USA and South Africa a death sentence has been upheld with a proviso to commute death to life imprisonment. If the death sentence is abolished then NO family or any community will be spared in the rampant killings that will arise…
If the death sentence is abolished in Zambia then no family or tribe or any community will be spared in the rampant killings that will arise due to this legal provision to preserve lives of killers. Parliament must stop this bad Law.