Ratify international treaty banning death penalty, govt urged

What you need to know:

  • The treaty, the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, requires all member states, among other things, to abolish death penalty.

Dar es Salaam. The Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance has today 13th September urged the government to ratify an international treaty abolishing death penalty.

The treaty, the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, requires all member states, among other things, to abolish death penalty.

The Commission has commended President John Magufuli’s announcement that he would not implement the death penalty despite the fact that the law allows him to do so.

President Magufuli made the statement on eleventh this month during the swearing in ceremony of the Chief Justice Prof Ibrahim Hamis Juma.

“The decision by the President is in the line with the international covenants and the declarations by the United Nations which requires member states to abolish or stop the death penalty,” said the Commission in a statement.

The death penalty has not been implemented in the country in a period spanning past twenty years.