Former interior minister, Cletus Avoka, has reiterated his opposition to the bill seeking to abolish the death penalty in Ghana.

According to him, the arguments in support of the bill are neither convincing nor provide enough justification for the repeal of the death penalty from Ghana’s statutes book.

Speaking on PM Express, he noted that the argument by proponents of the bill concerning the wrongful killing of innocent persons in the event of a miscarriage of justice is neither here nor there.

“I mean it’s difficult to think that everything can be 100%,” he said.

“But one, there are people who confess to murder so there is no issue of a mistake there. There are people who are caught red handed, so there’s no issue of mistake there. What should happen to those people?” he countered.

The MP for Zebilla is, however, convinced that the repeal of the death penalty could lead to more innocent lives being lost.

He explained that Ghanaians already have a jaundiced understanding of the judicial system and thus taking away the death penalty will merely embolden citizens to mete out mob justice.

“We’re going to give Ghanaian communities leeway to exert self-help and to do justice, mob justice in the spur of the moment. Because they will say that if you send him to court nothing will happen, they’ll only imprison him and then he’ll have the chance to come out so let’s kill him. We’re going to lose more innocent people, we’re going to lose more lives if this law is actually implemented, if this bill comes into law.

“Many people already jaundiced view or they have suspicion and mistrust about the judicial system, you go and add this now that if you kill somebody the law will not take your life after all the fellow will be there so that he can be reformed,” he said.

Cletus Avoka stressed that the proponents of the bill are refusing to accept the fact that state enforced punishments are not merely to reform criminals, but also to serve as a deterrence and retribution.

He noted that while the proponents of the bill seem to strongly emphasise reformation, they ignore the parts that talk about retribution and deterrence.

“There are three principles of this jurisprudence; they talk about deterrence, they talk about retribution and they talk about reformation. My colleagues are only talking about reformation, the fellow who has committed murder he can be reformed. What about the element of deterrence in society? What about the element of retribution? Because they’re three ingredients,” he said.