Capital Punishment Justice Project (CPJP), Eleos Justice and Anti-Death Penalty  Asia Network (ADPAN) commend the decision on 21 January 2022 by the  Parliament of Papua New Guinea (PNG) to repeal the death penalty. This is a  moment of historical importance for the global anti-death penalty movement,  and it is also a significant victory for human rights in the Asia Pacific region.  

The repeal of the death penalty ends months of uncertainty and concern that  executions may resume in PNG, following the 30 July 2021 judgment of the  Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea, which paved the way for the possibility  that the near 70-year moratorium on executions would end.  

Despite the Supreme Court having quashed the National Court’s temporary  stay of executions for all people sentenced to death, and despite the  reintroduction of the death penalty in 1991, PNG’s government has decided  that there is a different and better way to forge ahead and that the death  penalty is both inhumane and is not effective as a deterrent for serious  crime. We endorse Prime Minister James Marape’s statement, that made  reference to ‘other global trends and studies’, noting that the death penalty ‘is  not an effective deterrent to serious crime and offences’. We also endorse the  statement of PNG’s Justice Minister Bryan Kramer who noted that it was not  possible for PNG to carry out the death penalty in a humane way. 

CPJP, Eleos Justice and ADPAN now call on PNG to ratify the Second Optional  Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in  order to make a firm commitment that abolition will hold, noting that this is  not the first time that PNG has abolished the death penalty, but that we have  confidence it will be the last. We also call on PNG to ensure that the 40  prisoners that reportedly on death row at present are given the opportunity to  have a resentencing hearing, noting that there may be new evidence or compelling arguments that may make it appropriate that their sentences not  be automatically converted to life sentences. We note that the PNG  Department of Justice and Attorney General have established a new quasi judicial Advisory Committee on the Power of Mercy (ACPM) which appears to  be an appropriate mechanism to conduct such reviews. 

We also encourage the last remaining vestige of the death penalty in the  Pacific – the nation of Tonga – to follow the example of PNG and to repeal the  death penalty, thereby bringing it into line with the other Pacific nations which  are at the forefront of the abolitionist movement. While every nation grapples  with different criminal justice issues against the backdrop of the pandemic,  there continues to be overwhelming evidence that the death penalty is cruel,  inhumane and degrading, that it disproportionately affects the disadvantaged  and marginalised, and that its existence does not deter the commission of  death eligible offences. We are pleased to see abolitionist states such as  Australia taking steps to implement their policy commitment to advocate for  abolition globally, through their bilateral discussions with retentionist states.