There are at least 28 countries that maintain a “mandatory” death penalty for specified offenses. Those countries are: Afghanistan, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guyana, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad, United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Zambia. A mandatory sentencing scheme is one where the imposition of a death sentence is automatic upon conviction of a crime. The court (or other sentencing authority) retains no discretion to take into account the facts of the offense or the characteristics of each individual offender; instead, each offender is sentenced to death regardless of any mitigating circumstances that may apply. For instance, in countries that have the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking, a court would not be permitted to consider a defendant’s lack of criminal record or the desperate circumstances that may have contributed to his decision to traffic in narcotics before imposing sentence.

Texte intégral