Justice or Jurisprudential Obsolescence? Re-evaluating India’s Death Penalty Amidst a Global Shift Towards Restorative Justice

Abstract

The “Capital Punishment” or “Death Penalty” is the harshest type of punishment that can be imposed to maintain the law and order in any country or democracy. Yet, taking life of someone in the interest of providing justice is no better murdering them. Our top priority should be the abolition of crime, not the criminal or the offender. The death penalty sentence in India is frequently commuted to life imprisonment in accordance with the “Rarest of the Rare” theory. With over 1000 executions each year, China maintains itself as the only nation in the world wherein the punishment of death penalty is still widely used. But nonetheless, from 2002 to 2015, India executed 4 criminals in total. Although the procedures and laws governing capital punishment in both the nations share many similarities, the death penalty is irrevocable in China once it has been delivered. The United Nations (UN) claimed that “Life is precious and death is irrevocable” as justification for their opposition to the death penalty. Furthermore, according to the UN, murdering a person for the sake of justice also murders the very humanity. Who gets to live and who gets to die is not a decision that is under our purview to make. In order for the offender to rehabilitate himself and continue living in peace, we should opt for a different approach, the reformative approach, rather than hanging them to death.

Keywords: Death Penalty, Capital Punishment, Jurisprudence, Punishment Theories, Justice, Humanity, Human Rights