The Future of the Mandatory Death Penalty in Malaysia and Singapore:'Asian Values' and Abolition in Comparative Perspective, with Implications for Indonesia

• Author: Andrew Novak
• Position: American University, Washington College of Law George Mason University
• Pages: 303-313

e Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law

ISSN: 2338-7602; E-ISSN: 2338-770X

http://www.ijil.org

© 2014 e Institute for Migrant Rights

rst published online 10 November 2013

303

The Future of the Mandatory

Death Penalty in Malaysia and

Singapore:

“Asian Values” and Abolition in Comparative Perspec-

tive, with Implications for Indonesia

A N

American University, Washington College of Law

George Mason University

E-mail: anovak@wcl.american.edu

Although Malaysia and Singapore have been stark holdouts to the Common-

wealth-wide trend away from the mandatory death penalty toward discretionary

capital sentencing, recent legislative reforms in Singapore and a softening of pub-

lic opinion in Malaysia have brought these countries closer to conformity with the

emerging consensus that not all murders or drug tracking oenses are equally hei-

nous and deserving of death. is shift is all the more remarkable because both

countries have strong state-centered constitutional systems with powerful executives

and weak fundamental rights protections, justied by communitarian values and

wary of outsiders, especially transnational drug and organized crime syndicates. e

move away from mandatory capital punishment in Malaysia and Singapore will

sharply reduce the size of death row and the number of executions, which will in

turn contribute to intraregional pressure to abolish the death penalty as Southeast

Asian nations, including Indonesia, are politically sensitive to the treatment of their

nationals imprisoned or on death row in foreign countries.

Keywords: Death Penalty, Comparative Constitutional Law, Mandatory Sentencing,

Malaysia, Singapore, Human Rights, Capital Punishment, Abolition, Cultural Relativ-

ism, Communitarianism.