These last theoretical vestiges of the death penalty were abolished under the Palmer-Labour cabinet in November 1989 with the passage of the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 1989,[48] and there were no further executions during the transitional period. [3] The enactment of the Abolition of the Death Penalty Act ended all the death penalty in New Zealand. The Cook Islands, which based its statutes on New Zealand law, officially maintained the death penalty for treason until it was abolished in 2007. The death penalty has never been applied in the Cook Islands. [49] Aware of growing public opposition to the death penalty, the National Party allowed its deputies to vote their conscience in parliament, and ten national deputies subsequently voted for its abolition. The result was a majority of 11 against the death penalty, 41-30. The ten MPs were Ernest Aderman, Gordon Grieve, Ralph Hanan, Duncan MacIntyre, Robert Muldoon, Lorrie Pickering, Logan Sloane, Brian Talboys, Esme Tombleson and Bert Walker. The death penalty was therefore abolished for murder and theoretically retained only for high treason and other similar acts. In principle, this meant that from that moment on, de facto abolition had taken place. [3] Bolton`s execution raised the usual questions about the death penalty. Some people thought that the death penalty was legalized murder and that it was morally wrong to take another person`s life in this way.
Others opposed the death penalty on religious grounds or on the grounds that mistakes had been made. The Labour Party opposed the death penalty and commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment after taking office in 1935. He then abolished the death penalty for murder by amending the Crimes Act in 1941. In 1961, the National Party reaffirmed its support for the death penalty, but limited its use to premeditated murders and those committed during another crime or while escaping from prison. The issue of the death penalty sparked intense debate within the National Party – the attorney general of the second national government responsible for introducing the crimes bill in 1961, Ralph Hanan, strongly opposed the death penalty, while Jack Marshall, the deputy prime minister, supported its use as attorney general and attorney general. As mentioned above. The death penalty for murder was abolished and still is abolished today. However, the death penalty for high treason was retained until the abolition of the death penalty law in 1989.
There are still occasional calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty, but no major political party has made the death penalty an element of its election manifestos since the abolitionist law of 1989. Among the smaller political parties, the only exception was the fundamentalist Christian Heritage New Zealand, which ceased to exist in 2005. The abolition of the death penalty for murder (death penalty) became a problem in the 1930s. The abolition of the death penalty had long been Labour Party`s policy and, after it came to power in 1935, all death sentences were commuted. This policy was confirmed in 1941 by the abolition of the death penalty for murder. In 1950, the ruling National Party reinstated it, and from 1951 to 1957 there were 18 murder convictions and eight executions. From 1958 to 1960, the death penalty was abolished by a Labour government through the automatic exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. Finally, in 1961, by a free vote in parliament, in which 10 members of the national government voted with the opposition, the death penalty was removed from the code of law, with the exception of high treason. The death penalty in New Zealand – the process of sentencing those sentenced to death for the most serious crimes (capital crimes) and carrying out that sentence ordered by a legal system[1] – first appeared in a codified form when New Zealand became a British colony in 1840. It was first carried out in 1842 with a public hanging in Victoria Street in Auckland, while the last execution took place in 1957 at Mount Eden Prison, also in Auckland.[2] [3] A total of 85 people were executed in New Zealand. [4] The method of execution was always by hanging. [6] Initially, there were many possible execution sites throughout the country, but later the only two cities where executions took place were Wellington (the capital) and Auckland (now the largest city).
In New Zealand, the fight has been waged at the public level, particularly on the issue of deterrence. Both sides have valid arguments to make. There is evidence that the death penalty can act as a deterrent in some cases, although the most frequently cited New Zealand cases are not convincing. On the other hand, statistics show that the form of punishment has no demonstrable influence on the number of murders. What has probably contributed more than anything else to its abolition in New Zealand is the growing conviction that the situation in which the fate of a convicted murderer depends not on his crime but on the political colour of the government in power is intolerable. This undoubtedly influenced many who had not been convinced by the arguments of the abolitionists. Figures for the period before the seventies are not readily available, but murders and executions appear to have been proportionately much more numerous than in this century. In the eighties there were 12 executions, in the nineties seven, and from 1900 to 1909 there were three executions of 15 murder convictions. These figures must have shown that the death penalty was gradually forgotten, but after 1920 there was a relapse into a harsher policy.
Between 1920 and 1935, there were 26 convictions and 13 executions. The death penalty was first abolished for murder by the first workers` government in 1941, with all death sentences commuted to life imprisonment. However, the first national government that followed reinstated it in 1949, after which eight more executions took place until 1957. [5] Subsequently, public opinion turned against the application of the death penalty, and it was abolished again in 1961 for murder and in 1989 for all crimes, including treason. As you quote from this page: `DEATH PUNISHMENT`, from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966.Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New ZealandURL: www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/1966/capital-punishment (accessed 24 October 2022) “The death penalty is the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The death penalty violates the right to life and constitutes, by definition and in practice, cruel and degrading treatment. It is known to have been inflicted on innocent people.
It is in the nature of things that it cannot be undone. While South Australia and Western Australia abolished public executions in 1858 and 1870, respectively, the two colonies then passed amendments allowing the hanging of convicted Aboriginal Australians at the site of their alleged crimes: the Execution of Criminals Amendment Act 1861 (SA) and the Capital Punishment (Amendment) Act 1871 (WA). [26] In times of perceived increase in violent crime or when there has been a high-profile murder, the debate about harsher sentences arises. Some people believe that harsher sentences will deter people from committing crimes. The most severe punishment is the death penalty. As far as is known, there have been no executions in this country apart from murder. Originally, however, the death penalty was the prescribed punishment for a number of crimes, and until 1867, the death penalty theoretically applied to certain types of arson, certain acts committed with intent to kill, sodomy, and theft by force. Before 1862, executions were carried out in public; Since then, they have been held within the prison walls, the only people allowed to be present other than officiants, justices of the peace, and up to 10 adult male spectators at the discretion of the sheriff.