(Editorial) The “death penalty” again: repeated irresponsibility

It is not easy to summarize the various aspects of President Dina Baluarte’s irresponsibility when she called for the reinstatement of the death penalty in Peru. His recent demand to “open the debate” on the death penalty is a reaction to the recent murder of a twelve-year-old girl. This is proposed as the maximum penalty for child rapists. But these demagogic gestures of the government and Congress are known to change their purpose as the news of the day changes. Last week, Justice Minister Eduardo Arana spoke in favor of considering the possibility of applying the death penalty for contract killings. He didn’t give any legal reasons for it, but he said he felt it stupor for committed crimes; Similarly, Boluarte argues as a basis for the measure that “we cannot allow guys like this to walk the streets freely.” And to complete the picture, he asks the police to “strengthen the tools and improve the actions to protect the children of the country from sex offenders”, as if it was not in the hands of his government and as if it was not, for sure, his responsibility.

The first dimension of this irresponsibility is legal. The proposal to reintroduce the death penalty involves, first of all, ignoring the legal obligations of the Peruvian state as a state party to the American Convention on Human Rights or the Pact of San Jose. Faced with this, those proposing the measure begin by proposing that Peru abandon these obligations by denouncing the treaty. In addition to the ease with which the latter is proposed, ignoring the legal complexity of this extremism, it must be said that in the long term it means depriving the Peruvian population of a solid international legal and jurisdictional framework, which is the last resort for citizens to demand the preservation of their rights. So, this is some kind of legal looting and dismantling, which clearly violates human rights and, more broadly, against the democratic regime itself.

The second dimension is the absolute lack of interest on the part of members of the government and Congress to offer any serious arguments about the usefulness of this measure to solve the crime situation. There is no mention of any empirical study of how the death penalty might serve the proposed goals, much less the possibility of miscarriage of justice – something that should be of primary concern in a country like Peru where the administration of justice still has the need for significant improvements or reforms. In the absence of this, it is clear that the proposal is only a rhetorical act, a gesture that has practically nothing to do with the state policy of combating crime, strengthening the security of citizens and ensuring the rights of the population. This is, rather, another example – perhaps a paradigmatic example – of what is called today punitive populism.

And this leads us to consider the third dimension: what defines populism is governance through gestures. trickster instead of doing it with actions effective. The population is made to pretend that they are putting the problem in the forefront, but in reality it is simply ignored. Proposing the death penalty is a way to distract from the most important responsibility of government (and Congress). In the absence of a citizen security policy – there is a “call” by the president to the police to strengthen their activities, as if the police did not depend on the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and this, in turn, on the minister appointed by the president – Court punishments are proposed. Does the president commit to saying how many should be executed to restore public safety? The conclusion of all this is that the government does not offer citizens the development and application of a serious, responsible and effective policy against crime and the protection of their rights, but only an illegal measure in principle, the only concrete result of which can be to hide or cover up their negligence and to deal another blow to the democratic order in the country.