Malaysia’s government has agreed to scrap the death penalty, with campaigners welcoming the move but with pessimism as they insist the country had failed on previous vows to improve rights.
Capital punishment remains mandatory for several offences in the Southeast Asian country, including murder and drug trafficking, although executions have been suspended since 2018.
A reformist alliance took power that year and announced it would cancel capital punishment completely but the move stalled due to opposition from political adversaries and relatives of murder victims. The proposal to stamp out the death penalty in mandatory cases has been subjected to debate since then.
Law Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafer however stated on Friday that the Cabinet had agreed to scrap mandatory capital punishment, and added that further study would be carried out to know what sentences could be substituted for the death penalty.
Aside offences mandating the death penalty, there are other crimes where capital punishment can be handed down at the judge’s discretion.
Katrina Jorene Maliamauv, executive director of Amnesty International Malaysia praised the move as “a welcome step in the right direction” and urged the government to progress to the full abolition of this “cruel punishment”.
“We have seen and documented time and again how the use of mandatory sentencing has disproportionately harmed the most marginalised and disenfranchised members of society,” she said.
