Free Market Foundation
The notion that murderers have forfeited their right to life through their own actions is not unreasonable, but as with most big social issues, “who decides?” is the key question. South Africa could reintroduce the death penalty, but the conditions for doing so are rightly so onerous that we should rather just banish the thought.
Tiego Thotse makes an enticing case for reinstating capital punishment. Having experienced an attempt on his life and the now common “we can’t do anything to help” response from the police afterwards, I can understand the desire to see would-be murderers disincentivised by a guaranteed threat to their own lives. I have never objected to the death penalty out of principle. Real murderers, as Thotse rightly notes, do deserve to die. But I and many other liberals have had concerns about how the institution of the death penalty might threaten other sacrosanct principles of due process. However, because
