Malaysian Parliament Passes Elimination Of Death Penalty And Life In Prison, Here's The Replacement

Illustration of the Malaysian Parliament. (Wikimedia Commons/DannyG15)

JAKARTA - Malaysia's parliament on Monday passed legal reforms to abolish the death penalty, cut the number of offenses punishable by death, and abolish life imprisonment, a move that human rights groups have welcomed carefully.

Malaysia is known to have carried out a moratorium on executions since 2018, when it first pledged to abolish the death penalty completely.

However, the government faced political pressure from several parties and withdrew its promise a year later, saying it would defend the death penalty, but allowed the court to replace it with other penalties according to their policies.

Under the ratified amendments, alternative death sentences include caning and prison sentences of between 30 and 40 years. The new prison sentence will replace all previous provisions requiring a prison sentence for the perpetrator's life.

Malaysia's sentence of life imprisonment, defined by Malaysian law as a 30-year prison sentence, will be maintained.

The death penalty will also be removed as an option for some serious crimes that do not lead to death, such as the use and trade in firearms and kidnappings.

Malaysia's move comes as several neighboring Southeast Asian countries have increased the use of the death penalty, in which Singapore last year executed 11 people for drug offenses, while Myanmar, which is ruled by the military, carries out the first death penalty in decades against four anti-junta activists.

Malaysia's Deputy Minister of Law Ramkarpal Singh said the death penalty was an irreversible and ineffective punishment as a preventive tool.

"The death penalty didn't come as expected," he said in a debate in parliament about the measures.

The amended amendments apply to 34 offenses that can currently be sentenced to death, including murder and drug trafficking. Eleven of them constitute mandatory penalties.

It is known that more than 1,300 people facing the death penalty or life imprisonment, including those who have run out of all other legal remedies, can apply for a review of sentences under this new regulation.

Shakeupchew, executive coordinator at Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, said the ratification of the amendment was a good first step towards abolition of the total death penalty.

"For the most part, we are on the right track for Malaysia, this is a reform that has been going on for a long time," he explained.

"We must not deny the fact that the state is killing someone and whether a country should have this kind of power... with the abolition of the death penalty is the right time for us to start reflecting on it," he said.