Capital Punishment In Sri Lanka
Capital punishment is legal in Sri Lanka. However, since June 23, 1976, there have been no executions, although death sentences were handed down continuously by the High and Supreme Courts for murder and drug trafficking convictions. These were automatically commuted to life in prison. The government decided to reinstate capital punishment in 2004 for cases of rape, drug trafficking and murder after the assassination of High Court judge Sarath Ambepitiya. However due to significant opposition to the move no executions were carried out.
Read more about Capital Punishment In Sri Lanka: History, Present
Famous quotes containing the words capital punishment, capital and/or punishment:
“We make needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We make needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature—were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)