Citing ​‘Christian Values,’ Papua New Guinea Abolishes the Death Penalty

Citing its ​“Christian val­ues” and the unavail­abil­i­ty of any humane means to car­ry out exe­cu­tions, Papua New Guinea has abol­ished capital punishment. 

On January 20, 2022, the PNG par­lia­ment vot­ed to repeal the nation’s 30-year-old death penal­ty statute and replace cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment with a sen­tence of life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. 

“For us as a Christian nation,” Prime Minister James Marape (pic­tured) said, ​“the notion of ​‘thou shall not kill’ still pre­vails.” The death penal­ty, Marape said, ​“is not an effec­tive deter­rent to seri­ous crime and offences.”

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet ​“warm­ly welcome[d]” the parliament’s vote, char­ac­ter­iz­ing it as ​“rein­forc­ing the rule of law and strength­en­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence that those found guilty after tri­als fol­low­ing due process and in line with human rights stan­dards will receive fair, pro­por­tion­ate and consistent punishment.” 

The parliament’s action came in the wake of an August 2021 rul­ing by the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea that lift­ed stays of exe­cu­tion for 14 death-row pris­on­ers, remov­ing the last legal hur­dle pre­vent­ing the first exe­cu­tions in 70 years in the 9 mil­lion-per­son nation in west­ern Oceania. In 2013, the PNG cab­i­net pro­posed hang­ing, fir­ing squad, and lethal injec­tion as meth­ods of exe­cu­tion after the country’s con­sti­tu­tion­al law reform com­mis­sion trav­eled to the United States and neigh­bor­ing Southeast Asian island nations to study their admin­is­tra­tion of capital punishment. 

Presenting the abo­li­tion bill to par­lia­ment, Justice Minister Bryan Kramer said PNG did not have the ​“nec­es­sary admin­is­tra­tive mech­a­nisms and infra­struc­ture” to con­duct exe­cu­tions humane­ly. The bill com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of 40 death-row pris­on­ers to life without parole. 

More than 95% of the PNG pop­u­la­tion iden­ti­fies as Christian, with many blend­ing their Christian faith with tra­di­tion­al indige­nous reli­gious prac­tices. The major­i­ty prac­tice Protestantism, though Roman Catholicism is the largest sin­gle Christian denom­i­na­tion. The Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands strong­ly advo­cat­ed for abolition. 

Paul Harricknen, pres­i­dent of the Catholic Professionals Society of PNG, told the British news­pa­per, The Guardian, ​“The Catholic church in PNG has always opposed and still stands opposed to death penal­ty for it being un-Godly and unchris­t­ian, inhu­mane, moral­ly wrong and against the inher­ent human right to life of every person.”

“If we claim to be a nation of Christians we have to walk the talk,” he said. ​“Our laws must reflect moral and Christian val­ues, and death penal­ty is against that.”

The Australian gov­ern­ment, which act­ed as the admin­is­tra­tor of PNG after World War II, abol­ished the death penal­ty in 1970. Following elec­tions in 1972, Papua New Guinea became self-gov­ern­ing in December 1973 and joined the United Nations as an inde­pen­dent coun­try in 1975. PNG rein­tro­duced the death penal­ty for mur­der in 1991 and expand­ed its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law in 2013 to include sor­cery-relat­ed mur­der, aggra­vat­ed rape, and rob­bery. In July 2018, the National Court of Papua New Guinea sen­tenced to death eight of 97 defen­dants con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing sev­en vil­lagers in an attack the court said was ​“moti­vat­ed by con­cerns about a num­ber of deaths in the area attrib­uted to sor­cery.” An esti­mat­ed 15 death-row pris­on­ers had exhaust­ed their appeals at the time of the repeal.

A European Union spokesper­son called PNG’s death-penal­ty repeal ​“a fur­ther step towards the uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty.” The EU state­ment called cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ​“a cru­el and degrad­ing pun­ish­ment which fails to pro­vide deter­rence to crim­i­nal behav­iour, and rep­re­sents an unac­cept­able denial of human dig­ni­ty and integrity.”

“Papua New Guinea joins a glob­al trend away from use of the death penal­ty,” High Commissioner Bachelet said. ​“I hope Papua New Guinea’s exam­ple will encour­age those remain­ing States that retain the death penal­ty to take sim­i­lar­ly pro­gres­sive and coura­geous steps to abolish it.” 

170 of the 193 U.N. mem­ber nations have now either abol­ished the death penal­ty or do not car­ry out exe­cu­tions, Bachelet said.