Resolution on the Death Penalty

We, the participants of the Forum of NGOs participating at the 37th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the 11th African Human Rights Book Fair, held in Banjul, The Gambia, from April 27 to May 11, 2005,

Recalling that the death penalty is prejudicial to human dignity and contradicts the very notion of the freedom of the human being by its irreversible character;

Underlining that it is often passed after unfair trials and is applied in a discriminatory manner depending on the ethnic group, the race or social origin of the convicts;

Stressing that the so-called deterrent effect of the death penalty has never been proved;

Underlining that the death penalty does not reduce in any way the suffering of the victims and that an increasingly considerable number of the families of the victims are opposed to the death penalty;

Recalling that prison conditions in the corridors of death, i.e. for persons sentenced to death awaiting execution, may include such elements as very long detention periods, total or almost total confinement in individual cells, the uncertainty around the time of execution, deprivation of contact with the outside world, including the family and lawyers; these conditions often constitute, therefore, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment;

Recalling that the international law fosters the abolition of the death penalty since it amounts to a restraint to the right to life enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art. 3), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Art. 6) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Art. 4);

Recalling that several regional and international instruments abolish the death penalty;

Recalling that the Charters of the International Criminal Courts for Yugoslavia and Rwanda as well as the Charter of the International Criminal Court exclude the use of the death penalty at the international level; despite the fact that they concern the prosecution of the most serious international crimes – war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity;

Recalling the resolution of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights of 15th November 1999 asking the States to implement a moratorium on the executions and urging them to abolish the death penalty;

The participants at the Round Table on the abolition of the death penalty organized in Banjul on 1st May 2005 call upon the:

1. African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

– to adopt a resolution urging the African States to ratify the second optional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

– to recall, in such a resolution, that sentencing to death minors of less than 18 years of age at the time of committing the crime is a violation of the customary international law;

– to urge the States that maintain the death penalty not to impose it on mentally sick persons;

– to urge the States that maintain the death penalty in their legislations not to extend it to new crimes;

– to take into consideration the possibility of formulating and adopting an optional protocol to the African Charter abolishing the death penalty;

– to systematically address the question of the death penalty while considering the reports of the States parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

2. Member States of the African Union

– to support any possible initiative of the African Commission with a view to the adoption of a protocol to the African Charter abolishing the death penalty;

– to support the World Day against the death penalty (10th October);

– to support the resolution adopted each year by the United Nations Human Rights Commission concerning the abolition of the death penalty;

– to ratify the second optional protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aimed at abolishing the death penalty;

– States implementing a moratorium (de jure or de facto) to adopt a law abolishing the death penalty;

– Retentionist States to respect in all circumstances the guarantees stipulated by the international law concerning the death penalty, limit the number of crimes calling for the death penalty, and adopt a moratorium as soon as possible, as the first step towards the abolition of the death penalty.

3. European Union

– to support the initiatives of civil society in Africa on the abolition of the death penalty;

– to address the question of the death penalty in a systematic manner during political dialogues at all levels between the European Union and the member States of the African Union, in accordance with the Guidelines of the European Union relating to the death penalty (1998);

– to reserve a special place to the issue of the abolition of the death penalty in the EU/ACP relations, both at the Ministerial and Parliamentary level.

4. Civil Society

– to carry out awareness creating actions on the necessary abolition of the death penalty among the population, Members of Parliament, law enforcement agents, public authorities and the media;

– to make use of available legal means at the national and regional level in order to challenge the legality of the death penalty, particularly in terms of the right to life and the prohibition of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment;

– to organize awareness creating activities on the occasion of the World Day against the death penalty (10th October);

– to seize the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on arbitrary executions and the Special Rapporteur of the African Commission on summary executions about cases of the death penalty which are in violation of relevant international standards, particularly the United Nations Guarantees for the protection of the rights of persons liable to the death penalty;

– to seize the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on torture and the Special Rapporteur of the African Commission on prisons and prison conditions in Africa about cases of prisoners likely to be sentenced or already sentenced to death whose prison conditions are not in keeping with the relevant international and regional standards;

– to seize national human rights institutions, where they exist, so that they take position for the abolition of the death penalty.

Done in Banjul, 26th April, 2005