On 6 November 2017, Parliamentarians for Global Action convened a Parliamentary Roundtable on Strengthening the Rule of Law, focusing on the issue of capital punishment, in the Senate of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, under the patronage of its Honourable President of the Senate, His Excellency Faisal al-Fayez, and with the cooperation of the Coalition of Women MPs to Combat Violence against Women – Jordan. 

The Swiss Embassy to Jordan supported this event, and organised a working dinner on 5 November with the view of enhancing strategies towards abolition or a moratorium with leaders from the Jordanian civil society and the PGA’s delegation, which was comprised of PGA Members Hon. Intisar Jabbouri, Member of the Iraqi Parliament, Hon. Farhatullah Babar, Member of the Parliament of Pakistan, Hon. Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin, Member of the House of Representatives of Malaysia, and Dr. Isabelle Chevalley, National Councillor of the Swiss Confederation. The PGA Delegation was assisted by Dr. David Donat Cattin, Secretary General, Ms. Marion Chahuneau, International Law and Human Rights Program Officer, and Ms. Holly Sarkissian, Senior Development Officer.

After the opening session led by H.E. Faisal al-Fayez, President of the Senate of Jordan, which included interventions from H.E. Hans-Peter Lenz, Swiss Ambassador to Jordan, Hon. Wafaa Bani Mustafa, MP (Jordan) Chairwoman of the Coalition of Women MPs to Combat Violence against Women, and Dr. Donat Cattin, participants to the roundtable benefited from the varied expertise of panellists from the judiciary, the parliament, academics, and civil society.

Dr. Bassam al-Talhouni, Member of the Jordanian Senate and former Minister of Justice, introduced the framework applicable to the capital punishment in Jordan. Sen. Taghreed Hikmat (Jordan), PGA Member, then described the specific situation of the country, drawing from her experience as a judge, to underline why the use of capital punishment should be reduced, if not abolished. She highlighted how difficult it is, for a Judge, to impose the maximum penalty to a person who is found guilty “beyond any reasonable doubt”, which is a standard of human justice that does not correspond to “absolute justice”. She shared her belief that the death penalty violates the right to life and the Declaration of Human Rights and is not a deterrent since it does not reduce crime. Hon. Intisar Jabbouri (Iraq) brought the perspective of a Legislator elected in the City of Mosul to the debate, especially with regard to the atrocities committed by Da’esh and the quest for justice expressed by victims and their communities. Dr. Mousa Braizat, Envoy for the Jordanian National Centre for Human Rights, closed the first session by giving a presentation on the national, international, and religious norms framing the use of the death penalty, stating that Islam always prefers forgiveness or “asellam”, i.e. peace.

The debate was opened by the Chairperson of the Justice, Civil Liberties and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Hon. Sulaiman Al-Zuban, MP (Jordan), who explained the complex situation that led Jordan to halt its moratorium on the death penalty at the end of 2014, in the face of mass-atrocities committed in Syria, and popular calls for retribution that they generated. Hon. Farhatullah Babar (Pakistan) made a comment commending Jordan for its willingness to discuss the issue of abolition and called on more countries to reduce to number of capital crimes, implement safeguards and, ultimately, abolish the capital punishment altogether as a way to move in the direction of “a just, right-based society”. He remarked that a majority of Muslim countries are in favour of a moratorium. Dr. Nizam Assaf, Director of the Amman Centre for Human Rights Studies and of the Arab Coalition against the Death Penalty, underlined the need to address the social, economic, cultural, root causes of the crimes and encouraged parliamentarians to be opinion-leaders and move towards abolition, despite the current prevailing sentiments in the public opinion. Mrs. Eva Abu Halaweh, Executive Manager of the Mizan Group, furthered that point and insisted on Jordan positively influencing the region on human rights issues.

H.E. Mr. Basil Tarwneh, Coordinator for Human Rights for the Jordanian government, opened the second session by recalling that Jordan is one of the countries of the region that has shown the most interest in improving the situation of human rights on its territory. He suggested that a Forum be held at the beginning of 2018 regarding the implementation of a comprehensive national human rights plan. Ms. Taghreed Jaber, MENA Regional Director for Penal Reform International (PRI), brought the experience of her organisation and insisted on the need to work on an actual criminal law reform and raised the issue of how to ensure that the government’s response to the thousands of foreign fighters expected to be returning from Iraq and Syria does not encourage more people to join extremist groups such as Da’esh. She explained that the tribal mediation that happens as part of Jordan’s criminal justice process “encourages us to forgive more. It is a civilized, humanitarian tribalism.” Hon. Mustafa Yaghi, MP (Jordan) described the work of Jordanian parliamentarians with regard to the abolition of the death penalty, who led the 17^th Parliament to review 21 crimes and, ultimately, replace the death penalty with imprisonment. Finally, Dr. Amer al-Hafi, Professor of Comparative Religions at al-Bait University and Academic Advisor at the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies, concluded by addressing the religious arguments with regards to the death penalty and underlined that the Holy Quran expresses a preference for forgiveness and insists upon an extremely limited application of capital punishment. In his view, death penalty is more a social and cultural practice than a religious one, and as such should be opened to debate without fear. Hon. Farhatullah Babar suggested that when the rule is forgiveness and not retribution, this opens the door for the state to institutionalize forgiveness. Just as the concept of slavery is no longer accepted, the right to life has deepened and expanded and due process has been strengthened. Hon. Wafaa Bani Mustafa stressed the importance of this religious discourse which is not tackled by many. She explained that Jordanians want more rights and freedoms based international standards and that the motivation for change must come internally.

The participants concluded the roundtable with the adoption of an Action Plan, under the coordination of Hon. Wafaa Bani Mustafa, Member of the Jordanian House of Representatives and Chairwoman of the Coalition of Women MPs to Combat Violence against Women – Jordan, and Dr. David Donat Cattin.

We, as a State that recognises the religion of Islam, may not be in a position to abolish death penalty completely, but we can reduce the number of capital offenses to the gravest crimes against human life |…]. Real, authentic Islam dictates that we use punishments lower than the death penalty to avoid capital punishments. Hon. Taghreed Hikmat, Member of the Senate of Jordan, PGA Member

Death penalty is a very emotive issue but I’m encouraged that in Jordan two things have happened: last year, at the AGNU, Jordan chose to abstain from voting on the resolution on death penalty, where they had previously voted against; secondly, the fact that this discussion is taking place in the highest office in Jordan is encouraging that there will be a dialogue. Hon. Farhatullah Babar, Member of the Parliament of Pakistan, PGA Member

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