On 21-23 June 2016, PGA attended the 6th World Congress against the Death Penalty organized by the World Coalition against the Death Penalty and Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM), which gathered 1300 participants in Oslo from all regions of the world to share their experiences and discuss how to move forward on the road to universal abolition.
PGA’s delegation consisted of Hon. Barbara Lochbihler (Germany), MEP and Vice-Chair of the Human Rights Sub-Committee of the European Parliament, PGA Member and Co-Convenor of the International Law and Human Rights Program; Hon. Kasthuri Patto (Malaysia), PGA Member and Secretary of the Women’s Caucus of the Malaysian Parliament; Hon. Thomas Su Keon (Malaysia), PGA Member; Holly Sarkissian, Senior Development Officer, and Marion Chahuneau, Program Officer and Campaign Manager of the PGA Parliamentary Platform against the Death Penalty (International Law and Human Rights Program), both representing the PGA Secretariat.
Additionally, the following PGA members were attending the 6th World Congress against the Death Penalty: Hon. Fouziah El Bayed (Morocco); Hon. William Mandio (Cameroon); Hon. Fodé Marega (Guinea); Hon. Mario Marazziti (Italy), Chair of the Social Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies; Hon. Fatima Gouaima Mazzi (Morocco); Hon. Idrissa Sankharé (Mali); and Hon. Nouzha Skalli (Morocco), Spokeswoman for the Moroccan Parliamentarian Network. Several more parliamentarians were also present.
On the eve of the Congress, PGA organized a side-event on the Role of Parliamentarians in the Battle against Death Penalty, which was hosted by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting). The Storting President, Hon. Olemic Thommessen, delivered an opening statement stressing the importance of parliamentary initiatives in the course towards universal abolition of the death penalty. PGA Members Hon. Barbara Lochbihler, Hon. Nouzha Skalli, and Hon. Kasthuri Patto each spoke about their experiences and work on the abolition of the death penalty . Hon Patto spoke about the important role of legislators in retentionist countries like Malaysia saying, “As members of parliament, we cannot wait for promises to be kept and we raise these issues with the government every chance we get . . . We need to continuously work together and with our governments to stop executions, to get judicial reviews of death row cases, to remove mandatory death penalties, to reduce the number of crimes that can be punished this way, and – ultimately - to abolish the death penalty once and for all.” Read the remarks of Hon. Patto and Hon. Lochbihler.
During the Congress, PGA also took part into a workshop on Advocating for Abolition with Parliamentarians and the Executive, where it presented its peer-to-peer methods and the Parliamentary Platform against the Death Penalty. Participants were invited to freely discuss how they could approach parliamentarians in their own work and to share experiences.
The 6th World Congress against the Death Penalty concluded on a ceremony hosted in Oslo City Hall, during which Hon. Kasthuri Patto delivered a message on behalf of parliamentarians against the death penalty. The Final Declaration of the Congress calls on parliamentarians to gather in networks, whether regional, national or international, to carry the abolition of the death penalty into the discussions of parliaments and to support one another, especially colleagues from retentionist countries.
