Fariya Alam Jerin :
The first recorded evidence of the death penalty in human history is found in the Babylonian king Hammurabi’s Code of 1800 BC. Hammurabi’s law was based on the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’. That means – if someone kills anyone illegally, the killer would also be killed as his punishment.
Earlier, the practice of the death penalty was common throughout the world. Currently, only 58 countries impose the death penalty while some 95 countries have already abolished this practice.
Countries that still implement the death penalty include the USA, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, China, Iran, and Bangladesh, among others. On the other hand, Kazakhstan and Papua New Guinea have recently abolished the death penalty.
Meanwhile, it seems that there is still so much support for the death penalty. So, there must be some strong reasons behind this. Hence, let us take an example here to shed some light on the matter. If there are some children at your home, then you will see many types of wrongdoings there.
Then if there are some disciplinary punishments for that, the child will be afraid to repeat their misdeeds next time. Similarly, the death penalty is a system whereby, if a person is executed after committing a crime, it will set a precedent in society. Then the rest will not think about committing the crime later.
Therefore, a country should retain the death penalty as the maximum punishment because whenever people see this being executed, they will certainly be afraid to commit any crimes. And the saying that ‘blood for blood’ is really based on justice. Suppose, today someone takes your life without a just reason; then justice will not be done to you until your killer’s life is also taken.
Indeed, if the death penalty is abolished in a country, the criminals will become stronger and crimes will multiply there. Therefore, the process of awarding the death penalty to the criminal must be supported by analysing the degree and nature of the crime based on accurate evidence.
(The writer is a student, Department of Law, Notre Dame University Bangladesh)
