Taking away someone’s life has always been considered a harsh, painful, irreversible, and irreparable punishment, and it is one of the tools that governments use to exert their power and control over members of society, and it continues to be used more and more. Killing humans by the hands of executioners, due to the momentary anger of kings, the brief trials of prisoners, their immediate and mass executions, and the formation of a court based on the law and issuing a death sentence and carrying it out while observing all legal requirements and formalities and respecting all the legal rights of the accused, are all different faces of one truth, which is taking away a human life and disregarding their right to life.

As a result of advancements in the humanities and increasing awareness of human rights and the importance of protecting them, criminal systems have taken the initiative to eliminate capital punishment from their legal punishments one after another. Currently, this punishment has been abolished or practically not enforced in more than half of the countries in the world.

In France, the influence of intellectuals (1) and the efforts of human rights activists (2) ultimately led to the abolition of the death penalty in 1981, and in 2007, with the proposal of Jacques Chirac, the then president of France, Article 1-66 was added to the eighth chapter of the French Constitution, which states: “No one can be sentenced to death.”

Contrary to the belief of the general public that the death penalty has a strong deterrent effect, practical experience has shown that abolishing the death penalty and replacing it with effective punishments (such as life imprisonment or long-term imprisonment without the possibility of pardon) not only did not increase the rate of serious crimes, but in most cases, it has also led to a decrease in the commission of crimes and offenses.

The report published by the Abdolrahman Boroumand Foundation in 2018, based on statistics provided by the World Trade Organization, shows that after the abolition of the death penalty in eleven countries (3) with different social, cultural, and political characteristics, the overall average murder rate has decreased. This statistic clearly contradicts the hypothesis of those who believe that abolishing the death penalty eliminates the fear of death and consequently leads to an increase in crime rates. In fact, as the argument goes, “if fear of death was a deterrent, you would not have great soldiers and athletes, and just as humans do not seek death for noble and valuable purposes, they do not seek it for other purposes either.”

Unfortunately, the death penalty plays a prominent role in the criminal policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran for both religious and political reasons. On the one hand, the strict adherence to and inflexibility of the penal system based on religious principles has resulted in the inclusion of harsh punishments (such as execution for crimes like murder, corruption on earth, apostasy, insulting the prophet, and in some cases, adultery, drinking alcohol, theft, etc.) in the Islamic Penal Code without room for discussion or revision. On the other hand, the death penalty, which is based on the outdated and vengeful concept of retribution, has turned the judicial system into a tool for personal vendettas and family feuds, diminishing its role to that of a mere instrument of revenge. In such a situation, it seems that taking action to eliminate or at least reduce capital punishment requires fundamental changes and reforms in both approach and policy; one being a change in the society and government’s perspective on the effectiveness of

The extent to which there is capacity for change in approach and policy reform in society and governance is a topic that is beyond the scope of this writing and the expertise of the writer. However, there is no doubt that raising awareness in society about valuable human experiences over the past decades in the field of abolishing capital punishment and also rejecting the authority of governments based on the pursuit of current criminal policies and inflexibility in applying legal standards will undermine human values and lead to the reproduction of violence and injustice in society. It is the least that can and should be done to prevent and avoid its repetition.

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“Tomorrow, thanks to you, the justice of France will no longer be a justice that kills. Tomorrow, thanks to you, we will no longer witness secret executions in French prisons, in the early hours of the morning and under the shadow of darkness – to shame us both. Tomorrow, the bloody pages of our justice system will turn.”

These are excerpts from the speech of Robert Badinter, the Minister of Justice at the time, at the National Assembly of France on September 17, 1981, during the discussion of the bill to abolish the death penalty.

Notes:

One of Albert Camus’ works is the collection of essays written in 1957 under the title “Reflections on the Guillotine”, in which he criticizes the death penalty and demonstrates its inhumanity.

2- Like Robert Badinter, a lawyer and member of the Paris Bar Association, who accepted to defend murder suspects in France and made great efforts in the fight against the death penalty. After the election of Francois Mitterrand as the President of France, who had promised to abolish the death penalty, he was chosen as the Minister of Justice and played a crucial role in the proposal and defense of the abolition of the death penalty in the French Parliament.

3- Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Poland, Serbia, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Albania.