Well, the supposition is that if we, when formulating our own laws, have as a principle that capital punishment is immoral ... then that is our moral view of capital punishment.
And given that moral view, we can't do anything that may cause a person to be executed.
So if we're supposed to ship one of your malefactors back home, we want to know that the penalty, whatever it is, will stop somewhere short of execution.
Is this so outrageous?
Until recently, the Canadian government, on the same principle, has called for clemency for Canadians subject to the death penalty in foreign countries. Usually, this has had no effect, but the appeal has been made as a matter of principle, given our purported moral views.
The current Conservative government has stopped doing this, feeling that foreign jurisdictions don't need our interference in the operation of their legal systems. (Personally, I don't really consider it interference, but ...)
In the rare polls that are taken among Canadians about the death penalty, there used to be a majority supporting it. But this support is sometimes said to be "a mile wide and an inch deep." The death penalty is never mentioned as a major issue facing Canadians. One survey of 1500 people asking what the major issues were facing Canada, had not one respondent mentioning the death penalty.
The more recent polls show a decline in support for the death penalty so that pro and con forces are roughly equal.
All national political parties oppose the death penalty except the ruling Conservative Party, which doesn't positively support it, but would, unless its policy has shifted recently, allow a free vote in Parliament. (That means that MPs would vote according to their own conscience.)
Canadian research, like American research, overwhelmingly suggests that the death penalty has little effect as a deterrent. |