We support Senator A J Nicholson's call for a resurrection of the capital punishment debate because it's timely.

But while this newspaper recognises the need to leave no ideological stone unturned as the country moves towards a definitive stance on this controversial form of punishment, which we believe still has a relevant place in the civilised world, we must distance ourselves from the temptation to posit the death penalty as the solution to the crime wave that is literally drowning us.

And that's what the quotes attributed to the senator in Saturday's edition seem to be doing. According to Senator Nicholson, the discussion on the Firearms Bill provides an ideal opening for the resurrection of the capital punishment debate as "over time the firearm has become as commonplace an instrument of daily life as a water jar, a bucket or a slingshot".

True. But idealism apart, we know that Senator Nicholson, who occupied the post of justice minister and attorney-general for so many years, knows that it's just not right to perpetuate the mythical notion that there is some sort of positive co-relationship between the death penalty and the levels of crime.

For as an experienced, and, we daresay, brilliant lawyer, Mr Nicholson is better acquainted than most with the factors that propel crime.

He knows that those who murder, for whatever reason, rarely give a thought to the consequences and that the solution to the problem lies in more than the resumption of the death penalty.

It's no secret that the People's National Party (PNP), which Senator Nicholson represents, is an advocate of this form of punishment. For the PNP placed it squarely in its manifesto for the 2002 general elections, albeit that the government it formed after winning the vote did not act on its promise.
We are equally cognisant that a significant majority - some 71 per cent according to a recent poll - of this country favours the resumption of capital punishment.

However, it is important, notwithstanding the popular sentiment, to put the issue within its proper context as a matter of conscience as opposed to the best solution for the country's crime problem, which has its roots in poverty, ignorance, unemployment and a host of other shortcomings for which the previous and now the current administrations must take responsibility.

It is important to separate fact from opinion as we seek to settle this issue, which is still sitting on our law books, making a mockery of our legal system.

This will require us to bear in mind the practical realities, namely the seemingly unbreakable backlog of cases in the court system and the various international conventions to which we are signatories that have made it virtually impossible for us to effect the death penalty within the constitutionally-approved timeframe stipulated by the Judicial Committee of the London-based Privy Council.

For these are the factors that will pose the real challenge in the event that we decide as a nation to resume the death penalty.

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