Status of the Death Penalty

Extract

In Mauritius, the Abolition of Death Penalty Act, 1995, provides for the total abolition of capital punishment. In its place, courts are now empowered to impose a sentence of penal servitude for life. Mauritius thus joins Namibia, Mozambique, The Gambia and Cape Verde as the only African countries to have abolished capital punishment by statute (although in 1995 the military government in The Gambia reinstated it). As noted in (1995) 39 J.A.L. 192, the Constitutional Court in South Africa has ruled the death sentence unconstitutional in S v. Makwanyane and Mchunu (now reported in 1995 (3) S.A. 391; 1995 (6) B.C.L.R. 665).